Horizon Forbidden West has recently come under scrutiny for reusing animations from its predecessor, Horizon Zero Dawn. This criticism seems to arise with increasing frequency when it comes to video game sequels, and demonstrates a misunderstanding in how video game development works. Recycling animations is exceedingly common, and has been used since the earliest days of video game creation to streamline the development process.
Creating a video game, especially one as expansive as Horizon Forbidden West and its open world, is a massive undertaking. Even creating a single unique animation involves many different developers and departments from its inception to its final, completed iteration. Scrapping existing animation files for a direct sequel which features the same protagonist doing many of the same actions is nonsensical, and would be a huge waste of time and resources. Redoing every animation in the game would only take away from the new content being created that will actually let a sequel stand apart from its predecessor.
God of War Ragnarök was recently scrutinized for reusing the animation of Kratos launching a canoe, and even Elden Ring was needlessly mocked for having animations recycled from Dark Souls 3. Gamers expecting complete originality in every game contributes to an environment that promotes the abusive crunch that hurts video games and their developers. A Twitter post is just the most recent example of such discourse, unnecessarily pointing out a reused Zero Dawn animation in Forbidden West, where Aloy is grappling down from a great height. The clip was ripped from an IGN comparison video posted to the site's YouTube channel, but is shown in the context of the narrator, Jonathon Dornbush, celebrating the substantive differences they've noticed between the worlds of Forbidden West and Zero Dawn.
Recycled Animations Don't Hurt A Sequel Like Forbidden West
The notion that every game needs to reinvent the wheel is a misguided fantasy, especially for direct sequels. A second game was developed because people liked the first. Fans don't want Forbidden West to be a reinvention of Zero Dawn, they want it to build on the foundation they already enjoy. Innovation for innovation's sake in every facet of a game would only lead to even longer development cycles. Horizon Forbidden West evolves the series' enemy design, introduces new weapons and traversal mechanics, and will tell a new narrative - all components more important to its success than creating new animations for legacy features.
Even within the game's self-contained universe, why would Aloy have drastically altered the way she uses her grappling hook? Should she shoot a bow differently, or walk with a new gait? The developers recycled the animation from Zero Dawn because there's nothing wrong with it. Two possible outcomes from reusing the animation are the developers worked on something else instead or got to work fewer hours, both of which are preferable to wasting resources on unnecessarily remaking part of a game. If Guerrilla Games wanted to build Horizon Forbidden West from scratch, it would have, but it be a horribly inefficient approach to game development resulting in undue stress on its employees.
Source: IGN/YouTube, Twitter