Sony Announces State of Play Event for Horizon: Forbidden West

During the PlayStation 5 reveal nearly seven months ago, fans were given a glimpse at the next big project from Guerrilla Games. With Horizon: Forbidden West, players are continuing Aloy's journey as she travels west to discover the source of a plague that is killing anything it touches. The reveal trailer showed off new machines to fight, the ability to swim, varied ecosystems like deserts, beaches, forests, and more, while also bringing back characters like Sylens.

However, since that time, new details regarding Horizon: Forbidden West have been hard to come by as the developer mainly flew under the radar. Small little nuggets of information arrived every now and then such as revealing some of the new machines like the Tremortusk, but for the most part, fans were left to speculate. Thankfully, Guerrilla appears to finally be ready to talk about Aloy's next adventure as a new State of Play has been announced and is coming very soon.

In a new post on the official PlayStation Blog, Horizon: Forbidden West director Mathijs de Jonge announced that a new State of Play would finally give fans an extended look at the game. Starting on Thursday, May 27 at 9am PT, a new 20 minute State of Play would be featuring 14 minutes of gameplay captured on the PlayStation 5 console. Unfortunately, de Jonge doesn't divulge any more details concerning the gameplay, but this announcement should appease fans who have been waiting for new information.

Many fans have already started speculating that the extended gameplay demo may ultimately end with at least a release window for the game. While Guerrilla continues to be silent on a potential launch date, Sony's Jim Ryan did confirm earlier this year that Horizon: Forbidden West is still planned for a 2021 launch. It stands to reason then that Forbidden West could be the PlayStation's big holiday exclusive, launching sometime during the big months of October or November.

Regardless, PS5 fans should also expect the game to take advantage of the extra horsepower and features of Sony's next-gen console. Already, the studio has confirmed that the DualSense haptics will be able to let the player feel the grass as they walk through it, a feature that may sound similar to what Housemarque was able to do with the rain in Returnal. Naturally, the game will likely feature reduced loading times over its PS4 counterpart as well as taking advantage of 3D spatial audio, which seems to be a growing trend among all PS5 exclusives.

Guerrilla Games' Horizon Zero Dawn already looks like its blossoming into a franchise. Horizon Forbidden West is on the way, to the delight of many. The game isn't out yet, but it could very well be one of the most important games that the PS5 gets. Interestingly, Horizon is growing as an IP at the same time that the PlayStation, its home platform, is growing too. The PS5 isn't even a year old yet, but it's made its mark in the game industry. In a way, it seems appropriate that a sci-fi title about uncharted frontiers is going to bridge the gap between the current PS4 and the next-gen PS5.