Guerrilla Games struck it big with Horizon Zero Dawn in 2017, creating one of Sony's most-recognizable modern PlayStation franchises. Sony has pushed Aloy and her post-apocalyptic universe by promoting Horizon Forbidden West as a PS5 showcase and announcing Horizon Call of the Mountain as the PSVR 2's killer app. A recent rumor also suggests Zero Dawn will receive a PS5 remaster alongside a potential multiplayer spin-off. While many would expect this spin-off to involve group archery, it might make sense for Guerrilla to tap its history with Killzone and create a prequel around the Faro Plague.

While this round of rumors also hinted at Horizon Forbidden West coming to PC, most of the conversation has revolved around the necessity of remastering a five-year-old game so soon after Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part 1. Other PlayStation-exclusive titles like Bloodborne that arguably need more updates have started trending online in response. However, a multiplayer game set in the Horizon universe has a lot of potential, especially using humanity's downfall to set a heartfelt, tragic narrative around some high-octane gunplay.

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Horizon: What Was the Faro Plague?

Horizon Forbidden West Faro Plague

The Horizon franchise takes place in the far future, with Aloy only existing because life on Earth was reseeded through Project Zero Dawn. Through audio logs and main story quests in Horizon Zero Dawn, players learn that the planet's ecosystem was wiped out by robots developed at Faro Automated Solutions (FAS). CEO Ted Faro came to prominence for his company's work combating climate change alongside Elisabet Sobeck, but he eroded much of that good will by pivoting FAS to military contracts.

FAS' line of Chariot robots were ostensibly "peacekeepers," designed to be hacker-proof as to never fall into the wrong hands. The San Francisco-based Greenhouse facility in Forbidden West also gives fans a closer look at the Chariot line's unique ability to consume biomatter as fuel and to reproduce through Horus units - also known as Metal Devils to the planet's future inhabitants. Naturally this all backfires when a swarm goes rogue and "corrupts" other machines.

Seeing no way to stop the so-called Faro Plague sweeping across the planet, Elisabet Sobeck starts Project Zero Dawn to design AIs capable of cracking the Chariot robots' code and then repopulate the Earth using autonomously designed animal machines to clean the land, sea, and air. She enlists military leaders to help buy time for Zero Dawn's completion via Operation: Enduring Victory, which drafted millions of civilians to combat the Faro Plague under the belief that the project is a super weapon.

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How a Horizon Multiplayer Shooter Could Thrive Using Enduring Victory

horizon zero dawn operation enduring general herres hologram

A multiplayer game could easily be set in the more primeval future depicted by Guerrilla, with players selecting members of their favorite Horizon tribe and hunting giant robots together - or one another if it gets a PvP slant. However, in terms of worldbuilding and expanding the scope of what this brand can be, a military shooter starring inexperienced soldiers drafted for Operation: Enduring Victory can go a few different ways.

On one hand, this Faro Plague combat simulator could be a four-player cooperative shooter akin to Left 4 Dead that requires precision strikes to destroy mobs of Scarab-class robots before they overwhelm the party. That same gunplay could be adapted into a more typical competitive scene if the developer is concerned with gameplay over lore, or the game can take more out of Valve's formula by having player-controlled robots fighting survivors. Even bigger encounters like Khopesh or Horus-class robots could also set up asymmetric deathmatches.

Guerrilla Games would be well-equipped to handle a straightforward co-op or PvP shooter thanks to the nearly 10 years it spent working on Killzone, its big sci-fi franchise prior to Horizon Zero Dawn. There couldn't be a happy ending to a title centered around the Faro Plague, but there could be catharsis in watching a group of soldiers deliver the parts or hold the line long enough to complete Project Zero Dawn, not unlike Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. That formula has proven just as effective in video games like Halo 3: ODST, and a Horizon spin-off could end with Elisabet Sobeck sealing the last door to protect GAIA Prime before wandering to her childhood home where Aloy later finds her body.

Horizon Forbidden West is available now on PS4 and PS5.

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