Horizon Forbidden West promises to be a big step for Horizon as a franchise. Horizon Zero Dawn was arguably one of the PS4's biggest hits, and now it seems that both Sony and Guerrilla Games are interested in making Aloy an iconic character with many adventurers ahead of her. The first game did well in setting up Horizon Forbidden West's titular setting, spreading rumors about a rugged, untamed wilderness that was inhospitable even compared to Zero Dawn's machine-filled map. The new game promises to be fraught with peril, and its many teased new machines suggest that fans should get ready for another serving of high-octane, empowering combat.
However, Aloy didn't only fight machines over the course of Horizon Zero Dawn. In fact, very frequently, she challenged other humans in combat. Unfortunately, combat with other humans was often criticized as one of Horizon Zero Dawn's few low points, with some describing it as overly simplistic or simply too easy. Horizon Forbidden West might be set up to address that issue in a surprising but simple way. The Forbidden West doesn't sound like it'll be quite so thoroughly populated by humans as the first game. That means Guerrilla Games can shift the game's combat further away from fighting humans and deeper into fighting machines.
Unworthy Challengers
While it makes sense that fighting a human isn't the same as fighting a fifteen-foot tall mechanical monster, players are always looking to test their skills. Horizon Zero Dawn did have a few different enemy types for players to encounter, like armored enemies and targets carrying Blaze canisters, but combat with humans was never the same as machines. Fighting humans always boiled down to dodging arrows and finding headshots. In contrast, the machine combat was a sophisticated blend of targeting weak points, exploiting elemental affinities, memorizing unique attack patterns, and getting the most out of Aloy's many weapon types to bring the biggest machines down.
Horizon Zero Dawn fans aren't asking that fighting humans be on the same tier as wrangling a Thunderjaw. They just wish that there was a little more intensity and strategy involved in fighting humans. It's pretty odd how bare-bones humans were as enemies in Horizon Zero Dawn when the machines had so many details for players to learn. Horizon Forbidden West might largely do away with the problematic contrast by keeping Aloy from fighting so many humans. Although some might criticize that as an overly simplistic solution, it'd certainly do the job of giving fans more of the machine combat they love.
Possibilities of the Forbidden West
It has to be acknowledged that the human count in the Forbidden West might not be as low as fans are expecting. Although the region is clearly a lot of dense, untamed wilderness, there's also plenty of humans cropping up in the trailers. It's entirely possible that humans will still feature heavily as antagonists throughout the game. After all, Aloy's reluctant acceptance that she will have to fight and kill humans sometimes was an important part of her character growth in Horizon Zero Dawn. Guerrilla Games might want to explore that theme further in this sequel.
However, it still wouldn't be surprising if the sequel really is more about machines than people. Guerrilla Games has been eagerly teasing some of the new machines types in Horizon Forbidden West, which makes it clear that the game will have a lot of new challenges to offer players in that department. One hopes that, if human encounters are considerably rarer in the sequel, Guerrilla Games has listened to fan feedback and re-examined how they work to make them a little more compelling. It's clear that Aloy will be facing all kinds of new challenges in Horizon Forbidden West, so hopefully players will get lots of new challenges too.
Horizon Forbidden West releases for PS4 and PS5 in late 2021.