Horizon Forbidden West is one of the biggest games of the year. Acting as a sequel to one of Sony’s most beloved games in recent memory, there was no way it wasn’t going to be a massive hit. But after years of hype, positive reviews, and discussion amidst fans - it seems that conversation around the game has all but dried up.
That’s no slight on Forbidden West itself. TheGamer’s editor-in-chief Stacey Henley scored the game a positive 4/5 in her review, and while she derided it for failing to properly build upon the formula and characters, concluded it remains a compellingly gorgeous open world adventure. Perhaps that’s the problem. As consumers, we’ve become so accustomed to a big blockbuster coming out, consuming them, and moving onto whatever comes next.
Unless it’s a live service experience like Apex Legends or an all-consuming behemoth like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the current gaming climate feels suited to big releases that occupy the discourse for a handful of weeks before fading into obscurity. Yet even compared to other examples in the modern zeitgeist, Forbidden West felt especially fleeting in how it came and went without so much as a whisper. Like seriously, what happened?
Elden Ring likely has something to do with it. Much like how Horizon Zero Dawn launched mere days before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Forbidden West precluded the gargantuan footsteps of FromSoftware’s latest epic. One is a fairly predictable open world sequel that operates by the tenets we’d come to expect in terms of storytelling and mechanics, while the other is being hailed as a new frontier for open world experiences that offers untold freedom in its combat and exploration. Guerilla is a teensy bit unlucky.
On paper, at least in my eyes, there is no competition in terms of which I prefer. But I think treating a game like Horizon Forbidden West, which took years of creative blood, sweat, and tears to make, as yet another product rolling off the production line is damaging to the medium as a whole. I saw countless japes on social media about how Forbidden West launched within proximity of Elden Ring and thus doomed itself to irrelevance. While on the surface that is somewhat true and doesn't help matters, we also need to take this conversation outside the echo chamber and consider the wider perspective.
Aloy’s latest adventure is far more approachable, but that also comes with an aura of predictability that I think many fans were hoping to see upended. Our reviewer said herself that this is more Horizon whether you like it or not, meaning that hardcore fans will delighted, dissapointed, or a potential mixture of both. It sold and reviewed well, but perhaps within the boundaries of expectations given that the PS4 version had a hidden PS5 upgrade and the current-gen console is still notoriously hard to get a hold of. Many might be waiting to have the true-next gen experience instead of relying on old hardware, while others might be waiting for an inevitable price drop or complete edition treatment before taking the plunge.
There’s so many factors that contribute to Forbidden West’s discoursal fall from grace, like it was released at the wrong place at the wrong time because Sony believed it had the blockbuster status to compete. And it does, but conversely it also feels like Elden Ring surpassed expectations and put Soulsborne on the map like few games before it. Newcomers might have picked the game up and hated it, but that doesn’t matter, they’re a factor in myriad conversations that Horizon wishes it had the capacity of having. It didn’t because it was what we expected, and thus fans picked it up, had their fun, and moved onto something new. It’s why I hate Elden Ring fans, they don’t shut up about the damn thing.
Despite whether it was eclipsed by Elden Ring or didn’t do enough to innovate upon its own success, the quiet disappearance of Horizon Forbidden West feels like a harsh consequence of gaming as a whole. We are a medium that asks to be taken seriously as an art form and hopes to progress as a manner of storytelling, but gamers are also steadfast in their demand for content. There always needs to be something new to consume, to become engrossed in. For many, when the credits roll a game is forgotten about forever, or becomes an afterthought as the next big thing comes around and demands our attention.
Films, shows, music, and literature have an ingrained longevity that games haven’t adopted, and that will become a growing problem as projects become more expensive and predictable in the years to come. Horizon Forbidden West is a great game, but for some reason, it launched with a whimper that shifted millions of copies without inspiring a single word.