Horizon Forbidden West, an upcoming third-person action RPG developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PS4 and PS5, is still on track to be released in 2021, according to PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan.
The release of the sequel to 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn was uncertain given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. However, Jim Ryan confirmed in an interview in GQ that Horizon Forbidden West, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Returnal were still expected to be released in 2021.
“We’re feeling pretty good about Returnal, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Horizon Forbidden West. And, you know, there are two approaches to this: you can either hold the date and put out the game irrespective of quality or you can ship it when it’s right. We have always taken the latter approach. There have been some fairly high-profile instances of publishers trying the former approach,” Ryan said.
“It never works at the best of times. But I think in this world, where creative people are working remotely, you’ve just got to respect the fact that that development needs to take what it needs to take and to get the games right,” he added.
The game, which continues the story of Aloy, a young huntress of the Nora tribe sent to the mysterious frontier known as the Forbidden West to find the source of a mysterious plague killing all those infected, is expected to benefit from the PS5’s increased processing power, custom solid state drive storage, Tempest Engine and Dualsense controller for superior haptic feedback, 3D spatial audio and reduced loading times.
2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn was the best-selling game during its release week in the UK, surpassing surpassed No Man's Sky as the biggest launch of a new IP on the PS4 and was the most successful launch of any platform since Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, as well as the biggest debut for Guerilla Games to date. In November 2020, an ad announced that Horizon Forbidden West, which was announced during Sony's PS5 reveal event in June 2020, would be released in the second half of 2021.
Source: VG247