One of the many games affected by the ongoing pandemic is Horizon Forbidden West, the highly anticipated sequel to Guerrilla Games' 2017 action-RPG, which has had a new release date revealed. When the PlayStation State of Play earlier this year showed off Forbidden West, the release date was still undecided, with the hope that it would be ready by the end of the year. This turned out not to be the case, however, and Horizon Forbidden West has been delayed, as announced at Gamescom 2021's Opening Night Live show.
After much speculation and waiting, Horizon Forbidden West finally has a release date of February 18, 2022. Horizon Forbidden West game director Mathijs de Jonge made an appearance at Opening Night Live to deliver the news that it was officially delayed to 2022. De Jonge also announced that pre-orders for Forbidden West will go live on September 2, 2022. Unfortunately, the announcement didn't come with any more footage of Aloy's upcoming adventure, though so far fruitless rumors suggest another State of Play is coming, where Forbidden West would likely appear.
Although no news was given about Forbidden West except for its release and pre-order dates, Guerrilla Games had another small announcement, which came as a bit of a surprise. Horizon Zero Dawn received a 60fps upgrade through a patch, which is now available to all PlayStation 5 players. The more recent PC version of Zero Dawn has had an unlocked frame rate, but the former PS4 exclusive was previously locked at 30fps.
PlayStation Is Inundated With Delayed Releases
The unfortunate circumstances of game development over the last year and a half are affecting the whole industry, but the Horizon Forbidden West delay is a reminder of other PlayStation games that have been pushed back. There are still a few months left in the year, and the Ghost of Tsushima and Death Stranding Director's Cuts will help pad the list of PlayStation games for 2021, but original exclusives are almost entirely removed to next year.
Alongside Forbidden West, the still unnamed sequel to 2018's God of War and Gran Turismo 7 were delayed to 2022. Additionally, all three of these games are landing on the PlayStation 4 as well, over a year after the PS5 launched, protracting the window of overlap between generations. There will certainly be visual upgrades and DualSense features in the PS5 versions, and Horizon Forbidden West has shown with new features that innovation wasn't necessarily affected, but the delays combined with the difficulty of buying a new console are giving trouble to Sony's new console.