Horizon Zero Dawn will reportedly become a trilogy on PS5
Plans are already in place for multiple next-gen sequels to Horizon Zero Dawn, according to a new report.
Rumors have swirled for some time about a sequel to Guerrilla Games’ 2017 PlayStation 4 exclusive, but now VGC reports that Sony has “greenlit ambitious plans” for the future of the property, citing multiple unnamed sources.
According to the report, the next game in the soon-to-be series began development soon after the launch of the original with the goal of launching on PlayStation 4, though it’s since shifted focus exclusively to PS5. The story has reportedly already been written for a multi-part follow-up, with the current plans coalescing around a trilogy.
VGC’s sources say the upcoming Horizon sequel will include a co-op feature that had originally been planned for Zero Dawn before it was ultimately scrapped in favor of a focus on a sole protagonist, Aloy. Leaked concept art for the original game showed what appeared to be multiple player characters working together. It’s unclear how the addition of cooperative gameplay might impact the story—assuming it’s not cordoned off into a standalone mode—but it’s unlikely any sequel would abandon the focus on Aloy, making additional canonical characters working alongside Aloy the most probably solution.
At one point, VGC reports, Guerrilla planned to offer a standalone co-op preview of the game that would carry progress over to the final version, though it’s uncertain whether that plan is still in place. The world is also said to be bigger and offer more freedom than that of the original, which certainly wasn’t cramped or limited by any means.
VGC also speculates that some of the discussion surrounding the new DualSense controller’s triggers, specifically the mention that they could simulate the tension on a bow being drawn back, are a reference to a specific feature planned for the Zero Dawn follow-up, given that Aloy relies heavily on a bow and arrow.
Rumors of a Horizon sequel have been fueled by a number of job listings Guerrilla has posted in recent months, which mentioned work on an open-world title with AI-controlled creatures. Zero Dawn dropped players into a world that had been reseeded from nothing after an nanotech apocalypse wiped out all organic life. In addition to humans, the world was populated by robotic beasts that resembled dinosaurs and long-extinct mammals.
A little more than a year ago, PlayStation announced that Horizon Zero Dawn had passed more than 10 million copies sold, so a sequel always seemed likely. In November, Sony Interactive Entertainment also promoted Hermen Hulst, then the managing director of Guerrilla, to oversee its Worldwide Studios.
Horizon Zero Dawn is currently available on PlayStation 4. A Windows PC port is coming to Steam this summer.
