Horizon (video game series)

Video games

Other media and adaptations

The Horizon universe was adapted into a comic book series published by Titan Comics, beginning with the release of the four-issue miniseries, Horizon Zero Dawn: The Sunhawk in 2020.^[35][36] The story is set after the events of Zero Dawn and follows the newly appointed Sunhawk, Talanah. Struggling to find her purpose after Aloy vanishes, Talanah leaves Meridian on a contract to hunt a deadly new breed of machine: a black-armoured Clawstrider. During her journey, she allies with a Carja hunter named Amadis to battle the machines and a ruthless mercenary group. The comic bridges the gap to Forbidden West, by introducing new machines and characters that appear in the game.^[36][37] A second four-issue miniseries, Horizon Zero Dawn: Liberation, was released between July 2021 and January 2022.^[35][38] Set during the events of the game, the story follows Aloy and Erend as they hunt for Korl, an Oseram assassin responsible for murdering a merchant and linked to the death of Erend's sister, Ersa. The journey serves as a frame for Erend to recount the "Liberation of Meridian," detailing how Ersa escaped Carja captivity, befriended Prince Avad, and united the Oseram and Carja resistance to overthrow the Mad Sun-King Jiran.^[38][39] The comics were co-created and written by Anne Toole, one of the writers for the game.^[36][38]

A licensed co-operative tabletop game, called Horizon Zero Dawn: The Board Game was announced in August 2018 by Steamforged Games. The game was funded on Kickstarter in less than two hours and released in 2020.^[40][41] The first expansion, called "The Sacred Land", released in September 2021^[42] Steamforged Games partnered with Sony again for a second game based on Forbidden West named Seeds of Rebellion, which was funded via Kickstarter in November 2023. The game explores never before-seen canon events leading up to the game.^[43] In late 2025, Magic: The Gathering released six cards based around Forbidden West as part of their Secret Lair Drops.^[44][45]

Mainline entries

Following the release of Killzone 3 in 2011, Amsterdam-based studio Guerrilla Games began conceptualising their next project. The studio's leadership sought a shift away from the dystopian tone of the Killzone franchise in favour of a vibrant setting, whilst publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment wanted to add a Western role-playing game to its portfolio. From a pool of roughly 40 internal pitches,^[79] the team selected a concept by art director Jan-Bart van Beek defined by three core pillars: nature, robotic dinosaurs, and a strong female protagonist.^[80][81] Development began with a small prototype team of 10 to 20 people before the remainder of the studio joined after completing Killzone Shadow Fall in late 2013.^[82] Zero Dawn required a budget of over €45 million and a team of roughly 270 internal employees, supplemented by 18 external outsourcing studios, including Singapore-based Virtuos and Serbian studio 3Lateral.^[83]

Transitioning from linear shooters to an open world format, where the player can freely explore a large environment, Guerrilla intentionally avoided complex role-playing statistics to retain accessibility.^[84] Early prototypes equipped the protagonist, Aloy, with a rifle, but developers replaced it with tribal weaponry to better align with the naturalistic setting.^[85]: 7:18 To anchor the player's perspective, the developers created Aloy as an agile outcast, intentionally avoiding industry tropes of oversexualised female characters.^[86] Market testing revealed her early design possessed what developers described as a "Disney Princess" quality; in response, the art team spent two years iterating on her concept art to make her look older and more grounded in survivalism.^[87] Her visual likeness was modelled on Dutch actress Hannah Hoekstra, while American actress Ashly Burch provided her vocal performance.^[88] Guerrilla used physical motion capture actresses for Aloy's in-game stunts.^[89]

To build the world, Guerrilla modified their proprietary engine, formally naming it Decima in 2016. The engine used procedural generation for foliage and rivers alongside hand-crafted rock formations, managed by a system of data maps that tracked changing environmental conditions.^[90] In extrapolating the game world, Guerrilla collaborated with anthropologists and researched the formation of tribal cultures.^[80] Jared Diamond's books, Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (2005) were the team's main sources of inspiration. Despite being set centuries into the future, characters in the games mostly speak plain English, as the team avoided jargon to retain accessibility.^[91] For the audio design, the audio team developed an approach they dubbed "natural-fiction".^[92] Composers including Joris de Man and The Flight, and Niels van der Leest deliberately avoided traditional sci-fi blockbuster tropes in favour of an intimate, organic soundscape.^[93] They blended unconventional acoustic instruments, such as sparse cellos and contrabass flutes, with synthesised, circuit-bent sounds to reflect the juxtaposition of primitive tribes and advanced machinery.^[93][94]

The art team designed the machines based on their functional ecological roles, consulting with robotics engineers from the Delft University of Technology to determine how practical robotic anatomy would be constructed. Engineers recommended an exoskeleton approach rather than traditional internal skeletons, providing visual durability and logical weak points for combat.^[95] Animators studied wildlife documentaries to ensure the movements felt grounded in natural animal kinematics; for example, the avian Stormbird was designed with feather-like wing components to reflect its role as an agile, atmospheric scavenger. The Tyrannosaurus rex-inspired Thunderjaw served as the franchise's initial proof of concept, taking 18 months to develop from a sketch to a functional in-game model.^[79] The combat and stealth mechanics were designed to evoke the sensation of a hunt; enemy AI was programmed to be lenient upon initial detection, but difficult to evade once fully engaged.^[96]

Development on Forbidden West began in 2018. To accommodate the expanding scope of the franchise, Guerrilla Games relocated to a new five-story studio space in Amsterdam in early 2019, growing their internal workforce to over 300 full-time employees.^[97] Production cost approximately US$212 million.^[98] The studio delayed the release to 2022 to accommodate production disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and to avoid implementing mandatory overtime.^[99] As the lore expanded, Ben McCaw stepped into the role of Narrative Director. He centred the sequel's story around the pressure Aloy faced living up to her predecessor's legacy, introducing the clone Beta as a sullen, isolated dark reflection of the protagonist.^[100] The sequel also expanded its cinematic casting, bringing in actors Carrie-Anne Moss and Angela Bassett.^[101]

Retaining the core pillars of the original, the studio expanded player traversal by introducing underwater exploration and aerial mounts.^[102] As the studio's first cross-generation release, Guerrilla initially focused on pushing the visual fidelity of the PlayStation 5 before dedicating resources to ensure parity on the PlayStation 4. The limitations of the older hardware proved challenging; developers nearly scrapped the aerial mechanics, fearing the PlayStation 4 could not stream the environments fast enough to support the feature.^[103] To leverage the hardware of the PlayStation 5, lead character artist Bastien Ramisse increased the polygon density of the character models, allowing for enhanced facial capture accuracy and the rendering of fine vellus hair.^[104] Guerrilla updated the Decima engine to transition to the open-source Jolt physics engine and implement a rendering system to generate three-dimensional cloud formations.^[105]

To refine the combat loop, designers overhauled the skill trees and introduced "Valor Surges" to support distinct playstyles.^[76] The AI of human enemies was programmed to be more aggressive, and the disparate encounters of the first game were integrated by allowing hostile factions to commandeer and ride machines into battle.^[106] For accessibility, Guerrilla established a dedicated strike team to implement over 80 settings, including a Co-Pilot control system, bespoke difficulty sliders, and audio toggles for tinnitus effects.^[107] The audio design also scaled up to match the diverse cultures; composer Oleksa Lozowchuk joined returning composers Joris de Man, The Flight, and Niels van der Leest, writing distinct acoustic and percussive themes to differentiate tribes like the agrarian Utaru and the militant Tenakth.^[108]

Sony transitioned away from strict console exclusivity by porting the mainline games to Windows. Guerrilla partnered with Virtuos to adapt Zero Dawn for PC in 2020.^[109] Sony subsequently acquired Nixxes Software in 2021 to strengthen their PC pipeline;^[110] Nixxes handled the PC port of Forbidden West and co-developed Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.^[25][27]

In April 2023, following a series of management changes at the studio, Guerrilla officially confirmed that a third mainline entry continuing Aloy's story is in development.^[111] However, industry reports in February 2026 indicated that the sequel could still be three to five years away from release, as the studio's primary development resources had been allocated to work on Hunters Gathering.^[112][113]

Story expansions

Guerrilla developed The Frozen Wilds to expand on the base game's Banuk tribe. The designers drew geographical inspiration from Yellowstone National Park, using its hydrothermal pools to contrast the snowy environments.^[114] The studio upgraded the Decima engine to process real-time snow deformation and interactive water rendering.^[115] When designing new quests, the team tightly integrated narrative with environmental puzzles; for example, the character of Gildun was built specifically to justify a chain of mechanical failures the player must fix within a ruined dam. Animators added 108 additional bones to his character model to ensure his thick, fur-lined clothing moved realistically during cinematic sequences.^[116] Beyond erratic machine behaviour, developers altered the enemy AI to increase the difficulty of stealth mechanics, forcing the player to commit to initiated combat encounters. Animators referenced footage of polar bears and red pandas for the movements of the new machines, while the sound team mixed synthetic noises with walrus and seal vocalisations.^[117] Reacting to player feedback, the team focused on non-player character interactions, overhauling their cinematic motion-capture technology and recording actors Ashly Burch and Lance Reddick together in the studio.^[118] The expansion also marked the first time Burch performed full-body motion capture for Aloy, studying base game footage to accurately replicate the character's traversal animations.^[89]

The Burning Shores expansion was developed as a direct epilogue, introducing the Quen marine Seyka as a capable equal and an optional romantic interest.^[119] Dropping PlayStation 4 support entirely allowed the developers to leverage the PlayStation 5 solid-state drive for fast aerial streaming and to construct city environments within the seismically fractured ruins of Los Angeles. The console's enhanced processing power allowed developers to keep a specialised, high-quality lighting setup active on Aloy during all standard gameplay, a feature previously restricted to cinematic cutscenes.^[120] A technical hurdle was the introduction of volumetric cloud formations that the player could fly through, requiring low-level code optimisations to handle the complex lighting calculations.^[121] The expansion's final boss, a reanimated Horus machine, featured over a thousand more articulation joints than the base game's machines, requiring new climbing technology to ensure Aloy's character model aligned with the moving components.^[122] For the expansion's audio, senior Foley artist Joanna Fang broke down the environmental audio into fundamental, granular sounds to give physical weight to the volcanic terrain and water traversal mechanics.^[123] To navigate the flooded archipelago, developers introduced the Waterwing, a flying machine capable of diving beneath the water's surface, and implemented a dedicated thalassophobia mode to improve accessibility.^[124]

Standalone games

As the franchise grew, Guerrilla began collaborating with external studios to adapt the property into different genres. For Call of the Mountain, Guerrilla partnered with Firesprite. Unlike the mainline entries, the game was built using Epic Games' Unreal Engine 4 from the ground up to showcase the hardware capabilities of the PlayStation VR2. Developers used the headset's eye-tracking in conjunction with foveated rendering to dynamically allocate processing power and maintain visual fidelity.^[125] The shift to a first-person perspective altered the perception of scale, forcing the team to remodel and reanimate the machines for close-quarters combat.^[126] To maximise immersion, the developers incorporated haptic feedback in both the controllers and the headset itself to simulate the sensory impact of massive machines walking nearby.^[127] To accommodate different player comfort levels and mitigate motion sickness, the team conceptualised a gesture-based arm-swinger traversal scheme as an alternative to analogue stick movement.^[128]

Guerrilla collaborated with Studio Gobo and The Lego Group to develop Lego Horizon Adventures. Built in Unreal Engine 5, the spin-off reimagines the narrative of Zero Dawn into a family-friendly comedy, shifting the thematic focus toward environmentalism and the relationships between characters. To capture the visual fidelity of physical toys, developers constructed every in-game asset from individual digital Lego bricks and animated the characters in a stop motion style to replicate the aesthetic of The Lego Movie (2014).^[129] The writers aimed to make the franchise approachable for newcomers, hiring comedy writer Mark Llabres Hill to adapt the tone by leaning into slapstick and self-referential humour.^[130] Returning voice actors, including Ashly Burch, adjusted their performances to match the comedic shift, whilst Tim Russ was cast to voice Sylens following Lance Reddick's death.^[131] The game was released across PlayStation 5, Windows, and Nintendo Switch; narrative director James Windeler explained that porting a first-party PlayStation franchise to a Nintendo console was a deliberate strategy to reach a broader, family-oriented demographic.^[132]

Guerrilla continued to expand the franchise through co-operative multiplayer formats. The mobile and PC MMORPG Steel Frontiers is co-developed with South Korean developer NCSoft.^[133] Built in Unreal Engine 5 to optimise the large-scale multiplayer environment for mobile devices, the game shifted away from ranged archery, introducing a targeting system adapted for touchscreen melee combat. The game abandoned the traditional single-player narrative in favour of a player versus environment structure inspired by the Monster Hunter series, setting the action in an arid, American Southwest-inspired region known as the Deadlands.^[18] Furthermore, the in-house cooperative action game Hunters Gathering is being directed by Arjan Bak. Returning to the Decima engine, the title traded photorealism for a vibrant, stylised art direction to accommodate its faster, cooperative combat mechanics.^[19][134]

Critical response

The Horizon franchise has been a commercial success, establishing itself as one of Sony's best-selling first-party properties.^[157] By November 2025, the series had sold over 40 million units worldwide.^[158] Zero Dawn became one of the best-selling PlayStation 4 games with over 24.3 million units sold by April 2023,^[159] while Forbidden West maintained this commercial momentum with over 8.4 million copies sold within its first year.^[160] The series has also been a critical success. According to the review aggregator website Metacritic, the mainline entries have received generally favourable reviews; Zero Dawn holds an aggregate score of 89/100,^[161] and Forbidden West holds an 88/100.^[162] The spin-off titles drew a more varied consensus; Call of the Mountain received generally favourable reviews with a score of 79/100,^[148] while Lego Horizon Adventures received "mixed or average" reviews, holding a 70/100.^[163]

The franchise has received extensive recognition from major industry awarding bodies. Zero Dawn won the award for Original Property at the 14th British Academy Games Awards,^[164] Outstanding Achievement in Story at the 21st Annual D.I.C.E. Awards,^[165] and Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing at the Writers Guild of America Awards,^[166] alongside a nomination for Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2017.^[167] Forbidden West was similarly decorated, winning the British Academy Games Award for Technical Achievement^[168] and Best Storytelling at the Golden Joystick Awards,^[169] alongside a nomination for Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2022.^[170] The series' expansion and spin-off titles also garnered accolades; Burning Shores received a nomination for Outstanding Video Game at the 35th GLAAD Media Awards for its authentic LGBTQ+ representation,^[171][172] while Call of the Mountain won Best VR Game at the Golden Joystick Awards and Immersive Reality Technical Achievement at the 27th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards,^[173][174]

The Horizon franchise has received generally positive reviews, with critics consistently highlighting its visual fidelity, artistic direction, and worldbuilding. Reviewers frequently commended Guerrilla Games' ability to blend lush, overgrown nature with mechanical ecosystems to create a distinct post-apocalyptic setting.^[175][176] Critics frequently cited the use of the proprietary Decima engine across the franchise for rendering dense, vibrant open worlds. Lucy O'Brien of IGN described the first game's landscape as stunningly realised,^[177] while Phil Hornshaw of GameSpot commended the sequel's exceptionally detailed and gorgeous environments.^[178] The series' environmental design has drawn praise, with the wintry landscapes and dynamic snow deformation of The Frozen Wilds highlighted as an early technical showcase.^{[115][179][180]} The transition to the PlayStation 5 in Forbidden West and the Burning Shores expansion drew further acclaim for technical achievements, including highly detailed facial animations, advanced water rendering, and three-dimensional cloud formations.^{[8][72][181][182]} Digital Foundry's Oliver Mackenzie categorised the expansion's rendering techniques as a visual masterclass.^[121] The spin-off titles were similarly well-received for their presentation, including the immersive scale of Call of the Mountain,^[11][183] and the authentic stop-motion aesthetic of Lego Horizon Adventures.^[55][184] However, the franchise has faced some technical criticisms, particularly regarding initial optimisation issues with the PC port of Zero Dawn^[109] and a controversial mandatory PlayStation Network login requirement alongside audio-visual glitches at the launch of Zero Dawn Remastered.^[185]

The franchise's audio design and musical scores have also been highly regarded, receiving numerous industry accolades. The soundtrack for Zero Dawn won the award for Best Original Video Game Score at the Ivor Novello Awards, alongside multiple Game Audio Network Guild Awards,^[186][187] while the score for Forbidden West garnered further nominations for its composition at the 26th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards and Ivor Novello Awards.^[188][189] At the emotional core of the score are the lyricless vocals of singer Julie Elven, which critics have highlighted as a defining pillar of the series' identity, effectively capturing Aloy's underlying vulnerability and evolving strength.^{[190][191][192]} Furthermore, reviewers appreciated the detailed Foley work and sound design of the machines, observing how the integration of mechanical noises with real-world animal vocalisations enhances both combat readability and overall world immersion.^{[181][191][193]}

The tactical combat against the franchise's machines is widely regarded as its strongest mechanical asset.^{[175][181][191]} Dan Silver of The Guardian found the core loop of scanning for weaknesses, setting traps, and targeting specific components to be "endurably exhilarating".^[193] Reviewers frequently cited the machine design as a standout feature of the franchise, emphasising the integration of organic, animalistic anatomy with functional industrial components, alongside an evolving AI that forces the player to adapt their strategies.^{[175][178][181]} Critics commended The Frozen Wilds for revitalising this core loop through a difficulty spike and aggressive new Daemonic machines.^[179][194] While the combat difficulty and machine variety expanded in Forbidden West and the series' expansions, some critics observed a creeping mechanical bloat; the sequel's expanded skill trees, convoluted weapon variants, and upgrade grinds were sometimes viewed as overwhelming.^[61][195] Across the mainline entries, reviewers frequently identified the simplistic melee combat and encounters with human enemies as the weakest aspects of the gameplay.^[61][193] While the tactical depth of the combat has been a highlight of the mainline entries, the adaptation of these encounters in spin-off titles has drawn a more mixed response. Critics praised Call of the Mountain for providing a renewed sense of scale in virtual reality,^{[53][183][196]} but felt its restrictive, locked-track combat arenas limited player freedom.^[196][197] Furthermore, while the game's physical bow mechanics were engaging, several reviewers found its heavy reliance on repetitive climbing sequences tedious, negatively impacting the overall pacing.^[196][198] Similarly, while the weak-point targeting system was successfully streamlined for younger audiences in Lego Horizon Adventures, reviewers frequently criticised the game's combat encounters for devolving into repetitive and chaotic skirmishes, exacerbated by a lack of open-world exploration and an absence of the environmental puzzle-solving that typically defines Lego adaptations.^[15][63][78] Beyond combat, the franchise's evolving approach to accessibility also became a significant focus of its reception. Starting with Forbidden West, reviewers and advocacy groups commended Guerrilla Games for their robust suite of customisable options designed to accommodate a wide range of players.^{[199][200][201]}

The overarching narrative and worldbuilding have drawn a more divided response over the course of the series. The central mystery of Zero Dawn was widely praised for its personal and expansive scope, successfully grounding complex science fiction concepts within a tribal setting.^{[175][177][191]} The narrative of The Frozen Wilds drew a more divided response; while some critics enjoyed the deeper exploration of Banuk lore and themes of faith,^[180][194] others found the central plot underwhelming and largely disconnected from the franchise's overarching mythology.^[202][203] Critics highlighted the side quests in Forbidden West as a major improvement over the first game.^{[181][204][205]} Simon Cardy of IGN and Ari Notis of Kotaku both compared the game's character-driven narratives directly to The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015).^[181][204] However, the overarching plot direction of the sequel drew a more divided response; despite Notis's earlier praise for the subplots, he and fellow Kotaku writer Ethan Gach felt the main narrative's sudden shift detracted from the world's grounded tribal conflicts.^[206] This sentiment was shared by Ben Rayner of Digital Spy, who argued that the pivot toward hard science fiction and immortal billionaires missed the point of the franchise.^[207] The series has also faced scrutiny regarding its cultural representation. Holly Green of The A.V. Club argued that Zero Dawn and The Frozen Wilds uncomfortably appropriated Native American imagery, and criticised the narrative for occasionally relying on the "white savior" trope.^[208] Dia Lacina, a Native American writer, similarly argued that some of the tribal terminologies used within the games were disrespectful. In an interview with Vice, narrative director John Gonzalez responded to the discourse by stating the terminology was discussed during the creative process to ensure the team was sensitive to cultural concerns. He added that the developers did not base the tribes on any single real-world group, but instead looked at people from all around the world and across different time periods.^[209]

The franchise's character performances, particularly Lance Reddick's role as the pragmatist Sylens, have been consistently praised, with reviewers highlighting Ashly Burch's nuanced vocal delivery for anchoring the series and capturing Aloy's transition from an isolated outcast to a confident leader.^{[58][178][181][210]} While her established characterisation as an independent heroine was widely celebrated,^[211][212] Aloy's portrayal in Forbidden West drew mixed reactions; several critics found her increasingly abrasive demeanour frustrating.^[61][178] Furthermore, reviewers frequently criticised her tendency to prematurely spoil environmental puzzles, a mechanical grievance that persisted throughout the game, but was eventually addressed with an accessibility update accompanying the release of Burning Shores.^[213][214] Despite this, Aloy's emotional growth and evolving dynamics with companions like Seyka in Burning Shores were welcomed by critics as a necessary maturation.^{[70][119][215]} This development has prompted further analysis of the series' deconstruction of traditional motherhood; Sam Loveridge of GamesRadar+ observed that by framing Aloy’s relationship with Elisabet Sobeck as a reconciliation with a flawed predecessor rather than an idolised figure, the narrative effectively explores the breaking of generational trauma.^[216] The inclusion of an optional same-sex romance in the expansion subjected the game to a coordinated review bombing campaign on Metacritic,^[217][218] though the LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD commended the authentic representation.^[172] Beyond the mainline series, the narrative approaches of the franchise's spin-off titles also drew critical attention. In Call of the Mountain, critics generally viewed the standalone narrative as functional but secondary to the visual spectacle, though the detailed, naturalistic virtual reality interactions with returning characters were praised.^[53][183] Taking a different approach, the franchise's shift to a light-hearted, slapstick tone in Lego Horizon Adventures was seen by critics as a successful, if simplified, distillation of the dense apocalyptic lore, allowing the returning cast to showcase a refreshing comedic exuberance.^{[14][55][219]} Reviewers specifically highlighted that Burch's energetic portrayal of Aloy provided a welcome contrast to her serious performances in the mainline series.^[55][220] However, this tonal shift also drew a divided response; Katharine Castle of Eurogamer and Sarah Thwaites of TechRadar argued that the constant parody and lack of interactivity occasionally undermined the emotional weight and core themes of the source material.^[15][63]

Thematic and scholarly analysis

Beyond standard critical reviews, the Horizon franchise has been the subject of significant scholarly analysis. Academics have frequently examined the series through the lenses of ecofeminism and posthumanism, praising its thematic focus on an environmental ethics of care and the symbiosis between humanity and nature.^[221][222] Additionally, the series has been used in educational studies for its potential to counteract gender stereotypes through its variety of complex, non-traditional gender roles.^[223] Natalie J. Swain argued that the franchise subscribes to standpoint theory by forcing the player to inhabit the worldview of a social outcast, thereby privileging the perspective of the marginalised.^[224]

However, the franchise has also faced ideological critique. Andrei Nae and Eirini Bourontzi argued that the core gameplay loop, which requires the player to systematically hunt and dismantle machines for resources, forces Aloy into the role of a "colonial entrepreneur", contradicting the game's broader ecological message by promoting capitalist exploitation. Nae and Bourontzi further asserted that while the narrative provides a systematic critique of neoliberalism and unregulated corporate governance, the in-game economy paradoxically "naturalises capitalism" by encouraging resource accumulation without lasting environmental consequence.^[225] Conversely, scholar Ian Faith defended this gameplay loop as a "hybrid ecology", where the mechanical harvesting represents a healthy symbiosis and a low-waste approach to survival.^[226] Furthermore, scholar Alenda Y. Chang highlighted a real-world dissonance between the franchise's environmentalist themes and its reliance on the massive server infrastructure and outsourced global labour required to render its highly detailed mechanical ecosystems.^[227]