Horizon Forbidden West has finally gone gold, Guerrilla Games announced on socials. The sequel to one of PS4's most critically acclaimed games will arrive across both PS4 and PS5 on February 18.
Going gold usually means the game is now in a completely playable state, ready to be burned onto the physical disks. Of course, that doesn't mean the development is completely wrapped, as the team continues to improve the current build, aiming to ensure the best quality possible with the day one update. As hinted by the PlayStation Game Size account, Forbidden West has already received its version 01.002 update on PSN, which slightly increases its overall — and pretty massive — file size.
In PlayStation Blog, Guerrilla's director Angie Smets shared more details about the ambitious project that took five years from the team, including the first snippets of gameplay captured on the PS4 Pro console. Previously the devs only showed some screenshots from the last-gen devices — and they sure look stunning. In the director's words, "whether you will be playing on your PS4 or PS5, [the] team has made sure you get to enjoy the best experience on each platform."
Forbidden West is a major milestone for PS5, launching several months after the latest PlayStation Studios title, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which came out last June. Hermen Hulst, the current head of PlayStation, also reacted to the exciting news of Forbidden West's approaching launch, praising the team's effort.
"It's been an extremely challenging dev cycle, but the depth, scope and sheer quality of what they have achieved has blown me away," he said. Hulst was a co-founder of the studio and spent 18 years at Guerrilla as managing director. He also was closely involved in the development process of Horizon Zero Dawn.
Forbidden West originally was meant to hit shelves back in 2021, only to be postponed in summer for additional six months. The studio said it needed some extra time to "polish the game to the level of quality [the team] strive for." Hopefully, things worked out the way they planned.