Horizon Forbidden West: Comparison to Zero Dawn, PC & PS5

After Aloy’s story swept across PlayStation consoles in 2017, players spent years debating whether Guerrilla Games could pull off a sequel worth the wait. Horizon Forbidden West landed in February 2022 and, two years later, finally reached PC players in March 2024. The gap between the two releases tells a bigger story than version numbers: this is a franchise that grew into its ambitions across platforms, storage requirements, and downloadable content that dwarfs its predecessor’s expansion by roughly double the file size.

Developer: Guerrilla Games · Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment · Release Year: 2022 · Platforms: PS4, PS5, PC · Genre: Action role-playing

Is Horizon Forbidden West a sequel to Zero Dawn?

Horizon Forbidden West picks up six months after the original game ends. Aloy continues her westward journey across what was once the United States, now a fractured landscape of new tribal factions, overgrown ruins, and machines that have evolved in surprising ways since the first game.

Story connections

The narrative directly continues Zero Dawn’s plot threads. Aloy tracks down a network of GAIA subfunctions scattered across the map, each tied to a different environmental crisis. Players who finished the first game will recognize key characters returning with developed arcs, while newcomers face references that require context the sequel doesn’t fully re-explain.

According to the PlayStation Blog (Sony’s official publishing channel), the story “takes players further west, to a new region where they’ll encounter new tribes, new machines, and a growing mystery.” The game assumes familiarity with the original’s twists, which makes jumping in without context a dicey proposition.

New features introduced

Burning Shores, the PS5-exclusive DLC announced at The Game Awards 2022, expands the map into a volcanic archipelago reachable after completing the main campaign. It offers bigger enemy battles and denser city environments than the base game, representing the largest single expansion Guerrilla has shipped for the franchise.

What was better, Horizon Zero Dawn or Horizon Forbidden West?

This comparison surfaces constantly in forums and review threads, and the honest answer depends on what a player values most: raw performance or visual fidelity, story depth or side content volume.

Graphics and world improvements

Horizon Forbidden West runs at 4K 30fps in Fidelity Mode on PS5, compared to Horizon Zero Dawn’s checkerboarded 4K at 60fps on the same console. The newer game adds dynamic resolution scaling and larger draw distances, though Zero Dawn holds its own at higher frame rates. Based on comparative footage, the PS5 performance mode for Forbidden West targets 1800p at 60fps—offering a middle ground between the two extremes.

On PC, the Complete Edition leverages NVIDIA DLSS 3 upscaling and frame generation, AMD FSR, and Intel XeSS, giving options the console versions simply don’t have. Unlocked frame rates let high-end hardware push beyond the 60fps ceiling locked into PlayStation modes.

Combat and exploration changes

Forbidden West introduces weapon types and trap mechanics absent from the first game. Machine behaviors became more varied, forcing players to adapt tactics rather than repeat the same exploit strategies. The skill tree expanded with pullstarter abilities that reward lateral thinking over grinding.

Story and side content

Reviews note that Forbidden West contains significantly more sidequests than its predecessor. The trade-off is a main story some players felt compressed its emotional beats to make room for content. Zero Dawn’s narrative felt tighter; Forbidden West’s world feels more lived-in but occasionally loses narrative momentum.

Is Horizon an LGBTQ game?

The Horizon franchise has drawn attention for its representation choices, particularly around Aloy’s character development and the diversity of supporting cast members across both games.

Aloy representation

Aloy does not pursue canon romantic relationships in Horizon Zero Dawn. In Forbidden West, her interactions with other characters open narrative branches that players can interpret romantically, though the game leaves some threads intentionally ambiguous. The franchise takes a subtle approach rather than foregrounding relationships as core mechanics.

LGBT elements in series

Community discussions on platforms like Reddit have noted that the games feature explicitly LGBTQ+ characters among NPCs, tribe leaders, and side quest figures. These portrayals appear organically within the world-building rather than as labeled identity markers. The representation is present but not always central to plot mechanics.

Whether Aloy herself qualifies as an LGBTQ+ character remains contested in fan spaces, partly because Guerrilla has not issued explicit canonical statements confirming her orientation. The games present what players interpret as crushes and connections, but formal confirmation from the developer remains absent as of this writing.

Is Horizon 3 coming?

No official Horizon 3 announcement existed at the time of this article’s publication. Sony and Guerrilla Games have not confirmed a release date, story direction, or development timeline for a sequel to Forbidden West.

Rumors and announcements

Community speculation runs high following the success of both Horizon titles. Patterns from previous Sony franchises suggest new entries are typically announced after predecessor sales data clears internal thresholds, but specific indicators for Horizon 3 remain absent from public communications.

Aloy’s future story

The ending of Horizon Forbidden West sets up narrative threads that clearly anticipate continuation. GAIA’s restoration, the fate of the Zeniths, and Aloy’s personal growth all point toward unresolved arcs. What those threads become, however, falls into the category of informed speculation rather than confirmed facts.

What platforms and editions for Horizon Forbidden West?

Horizon Forbidden West spans four distinct releases across two console generations and one PC port, each with storage footprints that vary meaningfully for players managing limited drive space.

PS4, PS5, PC availability

The base game launched on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in February 2022. PS4 owners got backward-compatible access; PS5 owners received performance modes the older hardware couldn’t match. Sony later released a PS5 Complete Edition in October 2023 bundling the base game with Burning Shores.

PC players finally got access in March 2024, with the Complete Edition landing on Steam and Epic Games Store. PC features include unlocked frame rates, DLSS 3, FSR, XeSS support, DirectStorage integration, fully customizable mouse and keyboard controls, and PlayStation DualSense controller support with adaptive triggers and haptic feedback.

Complete Edition and DLC

Burning Shores, the sole major expansion, is approximately double the file size of Horizon Zero Dawn’s Frozen Wilds DLC. Where Frozen Wilds consumed roughly 8.4–9GB, Burning Shores runs between 14.9GB in Japan and 16.7GB in Europe, with the US version hovering around 15GB. Regional variation stems from localized textures and compression differences rather than content changes.

The storage data reveals Guerrilla achieved meaningful optimization on next-gen hardware—Forbidden West actually requires 4GB less space than Zero Dawn despite its larger world and denser environments.

PC pre-order bonuses included the Blacktide Outfit and Bow, while linking a Steam account to PlayStation Network unlocks the Nora Legacy Outfit and Spear. The Complete Edition also ships with an in-game Resources Pack containing ammunition, potions, and travel packs, plus an Apex Clawstrider Machine Strike Piece and exclusive Photo Mode pose and face paint.

“Gorgeous but the story drags, and there are way too many sidequests that pull you away from the main hook.”

— Reddit reviewer summary (community reception patterns)

“Fight bigger machines, encounter new tribes, and explore a world that pushes the PlayStation 5 to its limits.”

— PlayStation Store description (retail copy)

The comparison between Horizon titles reveals a studio that expanded its ambition between releases. Forbidden West runs slightly leaner on storage despite its larger world, offers more side content than some players wanted, and finally reached PC players with technical options that push beyond console constraints. For returning fans, the Complete Edition represents the definitive way to experience both the base game and its volcanic expansion. For newcomers, the choice between starting with Zero Dawn or jumping directly to Forbidden West remains a judgment call that depends on whether the original’s story context matters more than performance gains.