For gamers across the world the arrival of June will forever be a special time, as its approach heralds the return of E3 and a host of subsequent game announcements. While this year’s digital only event will be unlike any other in history, for obvious COVID-19 related reasons, there’s still been plenty of news floating around regarding what could be unveiled. Even though not every major publisher is on board for the event itself, this time of year has become so synonymous to the public for gaming news, to the point it’s somewhat safe to speculate that this won’t stop them teasing reveals either.
Sony is once again the most noticeable absentee from this years’ E3 event, despite having a roster of upcoming games that have been devoid of updates for nearly 12 months. One of these is Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel to one of the PS4’s most endearing action-RPG adventures, which is still slated to release in 2021. With the PS5 continuing to sell out and make headlines, there’s more than enough evidence to make an educated guess that Sony will have news for fans regarding it’s progress in June.
Sony Still Loves June
News that Sony would be skipping this year’s E3 likely won’t have come as a major shock to anyone, considering even before the pandemic the publisher had already started to distance itself from the conference. Among continued debates regarding the relevance of an LA based showcase to the gaming industry, Sony made the historic decision back in 2019 to snub the event, and has remained committed to the decision for the last three years. Sony breaking away hasn’t stopped it from announcing games on its own terms in the meantime, Horizon Forbidden West itself being just one example of this, often to widespread internet approval. With PlayStation software and hardware continuing to surge forward there’s a case to be made that this strategy has, at the very least, not hindered Sony or it's public standing enough to change that anytime soon.
In the last two years Sony has held its own parallel event during June, so there’s also enough smoke to speculate that a similar occurrence could go down this year that would open the door for Horizon Forbidden West news. This week alone Geoff Keighley confirmed that PlayStation would be involved in some capacity with The Summer Game Fest, which popped up last year in the absence of a dedicated E3. While this therefore becomes one potential place for fans to keep an eye on, it’s by no means the only chance the game has to appear. Some form of State of Play or an updated Future of Gaming event, perhaps even teased during The Summer Game Fest, seems like the most likely avenue Sony could go down. Historically these types of announcements have been made fairly last minute, so fans could be made to wait a little while longer.
Sony's Release Schedule Has Made Space
Not only is there a growing list of potential events coming up in June for Horizon Forbidden West fans to anticipate, there’s also a bit of a developing necessity for news to be revealed soon. Since the game was announced last year alongside the PS5, Sony’s first party studios have released a relentless stream of games, to the point a gap is only now starting to open up in the release schedule. So far in 2021 alone, Destruction All-Stars and Returnal have both hit the console, while Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is set to join them the day after The Summer Game Fest event begins. Barring any shock announcements, that means there’s a strong chance that Horizon Forbidden West is meant to be the next major game to come out directly from Sony.
Provided Horizon Forbidden West is still on target to make this year, that means the marketing cycle that will commence ahead of the game's release should be set to start in the coming months. Eager fans only have to look back on how Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart’s trailers picked up after Returnal was out, to see that Sony doesn’t like to distract from each of its games by looking too far beyond what’s on the immediate horizon. With Gran Turismo 7 having already been confirmed to have slipped out of 2021, and noise on the God of War: Ragnarok front being deafeningly quiet, the door is wide open for the action-RPG. While it’s true Sony has games from third party partners like Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Deathloop set up to take up a portion of the PS5’s marketing attention in the later months of the year, a chunk of their respective marketing will likely be taken care of by their respective publishers.
The Horizon Forbidden West Hype Has Already Started
Over the last few months there’s also been a handful of not-so-subtle marketing hints that point to Horizon Forbidden West news being lined up to drop sometime soon too. It all started back in March with the release of the original Horizon Zero Dawn on PC, which put the game into the hands of new players outside of the PlayStation ecosystem for the very first time. From there the announcement that the franchise’s protagonist, Aloy, would be making her way to into Epic Games’ Fortnite with her own skins, glider, and emote quickly followed. Both pieces of news propelled the franchise back into the headlines and were most likely designed with the express awareness that Horizon Forbidden West’s promotional campaign would be starting in the coming months.
For the last year Sony has also been pushing its Play at Home initiative with free games and DLC content for all PlayStation players. It’s no coincidence at all that Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition played a big part in the program by being the free game available through April and May. Sony’s logic behind the move boils down to the fact that the more people that have access to the original game and enjoy playing it, are then more inclined to be invested in news regarding its sequel. With games like The Last of Us Part 2 getting PS5 patches out of the blue there’s a chance that one for the original Horizon could also be another piece of the puzzle announced soon. Nothing is certain 100%, but all signs are pointing in a positive direction for Horizon Forbidden West news over the next month.
Horizon Forbidden West releases for PS4 and PS5 in late 2021.