Having been seemingly set up as Sony's biggest exclusive release for the second half of 2021, Horizon Forbidden West has likely been delayed to 2022. Despite there still being no confirmation from any official PlayStation source, several industry insiders have come out to corroborate the news, that it seems like only a matter of time until Aloy's follow-up adventure is officially delayed. While that news would understandably disappoint fans eager to experience the game following its impressive recent State of Play showing, everything shown there indicates that the wait for Guerrilla Games' action-RPG will likely be worth it.
If Horizon Forbidden West is ultimately confirmed to have slipped into a 2022 release, that announcement could end up having an even more profound ripple effect on the rest of Sony's first party releases. As it stands, the PS4 and PS5 both have a number of high-profile exclusive games lined up for next year that could theoretically get pushed out of the way for the open-world adventure. None of these are bigger than Santa Monica Studio's highly anticipated follow up to 2018's God of War, which is still yet to be fully unveiled to the public.
A God of War Delay
Since unveiling the still untitled God of War sequel during the PS5 showcase last September, Santa Monica Studio has been deafeningly silent when it comes to giving out any more details surrounding the Ragnarok-themed game. Beyond the cross-generational title missing its originally planned 2021 release, the lack of news has left fans to speculate on when the game might show up next.
Historically, since the end of the PS3 era, Sony has focused on releasing major PlayStation Studios-developed games in the months leading up to August. Outside of the PS5's own robust launch line-up, the latter half of the year has often been light on exclusive games. Instead, annualized third party marketing deals with the likes of Call of Duty and FIFA are relied on to promote and sell more PS5 consoles. There are plenty of third-party games coming later this year, so if a delay is in the cards, it would make the most sense for the God of War sequel to still target the earlier parts of the year.
With Naughty Dog having found success releasing both entries in The Last of Us series in June, a strong case could be made for Santa Monica Studio's game being capable of assuming summer blockbuster status as well. Sony could admittedly be willing to deviate from this formula, with Starfield set to kick off Microsoft's acquisition of Bethesda with a bang next November. It's not out of the realms of possibility for the publisher to capitalize on the delay of Horizon Forbidden West, by setting up Kratos' highly anticipated adventure as a counterpunch later in the year.
Back to Back Releases For PlayStation
With both games having initially been slated for release in 2021, it's not out of the realm of possibility for them to be ready to go gold in the early parts of 2022. Guerrilla Games' own director Mathijs de Jonge, backed this up to an extent in an interview around the June State of Play. He stated that development on Horizon Forbidden West was entering the final stages. Of course, with the ongoing pandemic still being a major factor hampering development, and the nature of the setbacks on both games still being unknown, nothing is guaranteed and fans should remain cautious.
It could also be argued that Santa Monica Studio's reluctance to show anything about the next God of War up until now, might be indicative of the game having a new expected release date that's further into 2022. However, with rumors and insider leaks suggesting a new trailer is set to be unveiled by Sony this month, any delay in marketing could be as much to do with the publisher providing a lack of public events to properly showcase the game. Being a narrative driven adventure based on mythical events, it also seems just as likely that all parties involved are reluctant to spoil the Ragnarok spoilers that will no doubt be rife in the eventual trailer.
In the scenario where both games reach completion at similar times in early 2022, Sony could have a scheduling dilemma on its hands. On paper, releasing two expansive story driven adventures in close proximity to one another during those months could theoretically lead to sales of each game being cannibalized. Players would naturally have to dedicate a significant amount of time to beating either of them. However there's some recent evidence to suggest that this could be exactly the strategy that comes into effect, and that the publisher also has little to worry about in terms of sales.
For starters, during the early months of 2021 Sony released MLB: The Show 21, Returnal, and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, all within the space of three weeks of each other. While these games admittedly inhabit different genres, the publisher has demonstrated how finite marketing resources can still be used to carve out success on the still stock-limited PS5.
In the past both franchise's have also released installments in the early parts of the year, with Horizon Zero Dawn and 2018's God of War having hit store shelves in February 2017 and April 2018 respectively. With the former franchise having crucially built a dedicated fan based despite going head-to-head with Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Sony is likely unafraid to put both sequels out in the same months again next to each other.
The God of War sequel is in development for the PS4 and PS5.