Horizon Forbidden West is launching in only a few more days and excited fans have no doubt become even more so thanks to all the glowing reviews that recently came out. And while those fans already have enough reasons to pick up a copy and start playing immediately, Sony has provided another one for the more environmentally aware players.
Announced via the PlayStation website and a YouTube trailer, Sony has partnered with the Arbor Day Foundation to help with three reforestation projects across the US. However, this will require players to contribute by playing Horizon Forbidden West. More specifically, by acquiring a specific trophy.
For every player that unlocks the Reaching the Daunt trophy, Sony will plant one tree in either the Douglas County Forest in Wisconsin, the Sheep Fire Private Lands in Lassen County, California (which suffered from a devastating fire in 2020 that charred nearly 30,000 acres of land and forest), and Torreya State Park in Liberty County, Florida. The plan is for the promotion to run until all three projects are complete (which requires an estimate of 288,000 trees planted) or until March 25.
Considering Horizon Forbidden West releases on February 18, this gives players only a month to meet the maximum donation. 288,000 trees is a lot but Sony is likely extremely confident that the game will be a sales success. Besides the positive reviews, it’s the long-awaited sequel to 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn, which was popular enough to ship 7.6 million copies in its first year of release. Recently, Sony and developer Guerrilla Games revealed that, as of November 2021, it had pushed more than 20 million copies across PlayStation 4 and PC.
Sony hasn’t explained how players are supposed to get the Reaching the Daunt trophy, possibly to prevent spoilers, and players may be anxious about looking it up before release. Horizon Forbidden West’s trophy list has already leaked online and is naturally full of major story spoilers.
According to Push Square, however, the trophy is incredibly easy to unlock as it is part of the main story and can be achieved roughly 90 minutes into the game. Since so many players will be unlocking this trophy anyway, even if they’re completely unaware of this promotion, Sony has made its target of 288,000 trees much more feasible.
As for why Sony is doing this, aside from it being charitable, it’s because of returning Horizon protagonist Aloy’s own environmentally motivated journey in the game. A mysterious plague is infecting the land, so Aloy sets forth for the titular Forbidden West to find the source and, hopefully, put a stop to the plague.
Horizon Forbidden West releases for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on February 18.
Source: Sony, Push Square