The ending to timeline of Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West could do with a prequel or two, especially when considering the untapped potential of the Old World and the myriad mysteries that followed.
[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Horizon Zero Dawn & Forbidden West.]
There are many routes that a Horizon Zero Dawn prequel could take, as the lore of the games has revealed much of what Earth looked like prior to its post-apocalyptic setting. One of the things revealed about Earth's history is Operation: Enduring Victory, the year-plus long war in which united military forces around the globe fought against the overpowering Faro Plague in the mid-21st Century. Enduring Victory boasted a two-pronged goal in essence: provide humanity with a false sense of hope and secure Elisabet Sobeck and her teams the time necessary to complete the ambitious Project Zero Dawn.
Both Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West offer extensive insight into the horrors soldiers faced during the fight against Faro's deadly machines, all while believing humanity still had a chance at survival. Players discover such anecdotes by listening to audio recordings - journals, unsent messages, and the like - or, in Horizon Forbidden West, black boxes from destroyed aircraft. But what if Guerrilla Games chose to revisit its first-person shooter roots for an adventure that allowed Horizon faithful to experience Enduring Victory up close and personal? Instead of battling Corrupters with fire arrows and tripwires, an Enduring Victory-centric game would arm the protagonist with futuristic firearms, armored tanks, and perhaps even fighter planes.
A Horizon Zero Dawn Prequel Could Take Inspiration From Battlefield
The game itself need not be too expansive, either. A structure akin to that of Battlefield 5's War Stories could work wonders, for example, positioning players in the role of various soldiers at different intervals during the conflict. Setting each vignette in a different theater of war at disparate periods like Battlefield 5's single-player would give license to developers, and ultimately s, to explore the events leading up to Zero Day - the projected day upon which the Faro Plague would exterminate all life on Earth - in other parts of the world, too.
As of yet, Horizon has only showcased the ruins of the United States, with regions such as Colorado and Utah serving as the primary locale in Zero Dawn while Forbidden West sees Aloy traverse parts of Nevada, California, and Utah. It's still unclear how the United Kingdom, , and African countries respond to the catastrophe wrought by an overambitious American manufacturer. While a Horizon Forbidden West sequel could answer these questions to an extent, specifically via audio diaries and holograms, nothing could prove quite as transformative as being present for the action in a dedicated shooter.
Horizon Zero Dawn Prequel - The Far Zenith Chronicles
Of all the twists and turns woven into Horizon Forbidden West's overarching narrative, the Far Zenith reveal counts among the most compelling. As the organization responsible for producing the ectogenic chambers that Elisabet Sobeck secured for Project Zero Dawn, Far Zenith receives a fair few mentions in Horizon Zero Dawn. The original game referenced the think tank organization's involvement with the Odyssey colony ship a time or two, as well. Yet, this particular aspect of Horizon lore especially exploded in Forbidden West as Aloy learned of the ship's survival and the Zenith ' subsequent development of life-extending technology.
Instead of losing their lives in a fiery explosion as Sobeck and Co., and by proxy Aloy, were led to believe, PSVR 2's Horizon: Call of the Mountain.
Where Horizon Could Go After Forbidden West
The science-fiction universe Guerrilla Games introduced a little over five years ago runs rampant with possibilities. A wide range of prequels, spinoffs, and direct sequels could spawn from the first two Horizon installments alone. And, as mentioned above, they don't all have to come in the form of third-person action titles akin to Zero Dawn and Forbidden West. Of course, the primary question is whether or not Guerrilla and Sony plan on tapping into such potential beyond the currently in development PlayStation VR 2 experience, which the Amsterdam-headquartered studio is co-producing alongside The Persistence creator Firesprite.
For now, it seems the main focus revolves around continuing and finishing Aloy's story. The third act of Horizon Forbidden West's story establishes a new threat, a menacing artificial intelligence dead set on ensuring the Far Zenith crew can never find refuge on a habitable world. What the vengeful Nemesis AI has in store for the planet upon landing on Earth presently remains unknown, yet it's clear Aloy and the team she assembled while exploring the Forbidden West will have their work cut out for them.
It begs the question, then, of whether the Horizon series ever-present Aloy will have a story arc that does not involve a doomsday-level catastrophe. Maybe, maybe not. The argument could be made that impending doom serves as the brand's overall motif, the very nexus of what makes the world-building, gameplay, and characters work so well, which makes sense given the general state of the in-universe world. But if looming, life-ending threats should remain at the core of Guerrilla Games' Horizon series past Horizon Forbidden West, here's to hoping some of its earlier crises eventually sit center stage in a game of their own.