Horizon Forbidden West is a single-player action RPG (role-playing game) with a long-awaited release on February 18, 2022. We’ve all seen how stunning the graphics its predecessor, Horizon Zero Dawn (2017), had. Hence, that part is all but guaranteed to be extraordinary in the sequel. Therefore, with the date approaching, more hype is building up about the storyline. Not the quality, since gamers are already familiar with Aloy and her open-world exploits in the post-apocalyptic United States. The map will be bigger and more detailed, and for the first time, feature underwater exploration. Instead, the thing that caught players’ attention were stories that Horizon Forbidden West will showcase strong moral choices.
Those are a direct result of Horizon Zero Dawn’s storyline. After all, this game is set 6 months later in the timeline. We don’t want to spoil the story, but we’ll mention you’ll see the negative sides of the post-apocalyptic world. More specifically, the consequences of terraforming, and suspicion of a critical error in the operation.
Some people with a keen eye predict the Red Blight disease featured in trailers caused these alterations. Though not confirmed, it makes perfect sense, since the ailment seems to attack wildlife and plants alike, and even other tribes, particularly Plainsong. Regardless of if that’s the case, you will nonetheless be up against a looming global ecological threat, and scramble for ways to repair the failing biosphere almost non-stop.
As part of a strong focus on the way terraforming changed the world, climate change has a prominent presence. You’ll get to see its effects on local ecology, which is only a small part of the enormous world the game boasts. We suspect the game will imitate real-life to an extent, and showcase the unusual influence on weather patterns and migration of living beings. We have yet to see how it will affect the animalistic machines, though.
All this information stems from the Everyeye interview the game’s narrative director, Benjamin McCaw, has given to the web portal alongside senior writer Annie Kitain. WCCFTech later translated their conversation. They pointed out that, unlike most RPGs released nowadays, Horizon Forbidden West will only have a single canon ending. However, that ending has been called “impactful” and takes into account all decisions you make throughout the game.
To clarify, the player choices Benjamin described as “quite difficult to make” will affect the path to the pivotal points in the story. The actions players take will neither change those key points nor the ending, however. Benjamin and Annie also let it slip that relationships with minor characters may impact the storyline progress. However, they limited this to “some nuances” and nothing major.