Horizon Forbidden West devs have revealed players will be able to climb a lot more freely than they could do in Zero Dawn.
The hype for Horizon Forbidden West is beginning to ramp up in a major way following the gameplay reveal during its State of Play last week. Game Informer recently sat down with two of Forbidden West's devs who revealed a slew of previously unreleased details about the upcoming sequel, including some exciting news about its climbing mechanics.
Forbidden West's game director Mathijs De Jonge revealed that players will be able to climb pretty much anywhere. "You are now free to climb anywhere on any mountain, rocks, or cliffs," De Jonge explained. The aim of doing this is to make the world even more open and inviting than it was in the first game.
In Zero Dawn, the climbing mechanics were much more linear. The climbing routes up mountains and rocks were pre-determined and laid out for you ahead of time. A tweak to adapt this might seem minor on the surface, but it will feel so much different when it comes to actually playing the game, and will have also required a lot of work to implement.
A lot more of Forbidden West's finer details were also revealed during the interview, which you can check out above in full. Forbidden West will include an entirely reworked skill tree system, as well as a new workbench system for upgrading weapons and items. It was also revealed that the PS4 version of the game is still being playtested and will feature a different water rendering technique to the game on PS5.
Despite the renewed hype following the Forbidden West State of Play, its release is still at least a few months away. It was reported this week that the sequel is still on target to be here before the end of 2021, whereas God of War 2's release has been pushed back into next year. There has also been a lot of chatter surrounding how Aloy looks in Forbidden West, but that chatter thankfully seems to have died down.