'Horizon Forbidden West': PlayStation Hints At Not Hitting Game's Target Release Date

A few days after Sony's Santa Monica Studio announced that the release of the next "God of War" game might be delayed, PlayStation has hinted that the launch of "Horizon Forbidden West" is headed in the same direction.

Even though PlayStation has not officially commented on a delay in the release of "Horizon Forbidden West," a recent Q&A session suggested the game was in danger of being pushed to a 2022 release window.

In the Q&A session, shared on PlayStation Blog, PlayStation Head of Worldwide Studios Hermen Hulst admitted the much-awaited exclusive title may not hit its target release and, as a result, may be pushed to next year.

"So we have, currently, two very big, very narrative-driven games in development: Horizon Forbidden West and the next God of War," the executive said. "And for both of those, they’re frankly affected by access to performance capture and talent. For Horizon, we think we are on track to release this holiday season. But that isn’t quite certain yet, and we’re working as hard as we can to confirm that to you as soon as we can."

In the same blog post, Hulst noted that the current global health crisis has a significant impact on game development. This is especially true when it comes to capturing and making use of what he refers to as "specialist locations." Hulst added, "Perhaps the biggest challenge has been when we need specialist locations, often physical locations. Primarily performance capture, audio work. We’ve come up with some really clever solutions to some of this; we built tiny recording studios in people’s houses."

However, Guerilla Games, the gaming studio behind "Horizon Forbidden West," still aims to release the game this holiday season.

"Horizon Forbidden West" is the follow-up game to "Horizon Zero Dawn," developed and released in 2017 by Guerilla Games. Fans got their first glimpse at the upcoming title recently when the team released its trailer at the State of Play. The showcase revealed the massive improvements game developers made to the open-world title.

Many fans admired the game's impressive graphics. "Horizon Forbidden West" is currently in development for PlayStation 4 and PS5.