Horizon 3 Already Has the Perfect Blueprint for Ending…

Ever since Guerrilla Games released the 2023 Burning Shores DLC for Horizon Forbidden West, set after Forbidden West’s main campaign, fans of the action RPG series have long theorized how the story may progress in the third Horizon game. While plotlines from Forbidden West are expected to be touched upon in Guerrilla’s upcoming story-focused Horizon multiplayer spin-off, it’s expected that most of Forbidden West’s narrative developments will be resolved in Horizon 3.

With Horizon 3 believed to be ending Aloy’s journey in Horizon’s original trilogy, it’s believed that Aloy may die in the third mainline Horizon game. However, Guerrilla could take inspiration from another popular RPG series to end Aloy’s story without killing her in Horizon 3: The Witcher.

aloy horizon forbidden west and horizon zero dawn background

Before Horizon 3, Zero Dawn and Forbidden West Should Chart One New Frontier

To get more people excited for Horizon 3, Guerrilla Games should make one major move with Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West.

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By Ediz Guner

The Witcher 4’s New Protagonist Explained

The Witcher franchise, across its many novels, short stories, comic books, video games, films, and television series, has primarily centered around the titular witcher, Geralt of Rivia. But, after the widespread financial and critical success of 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, developer CD Projekt Red chose to go in a new direction with The Witcher 4. According to Małgorzata Mitręga, executive producer of The Witcher 4, the upcoming game is being targeted towards a wider audience—many of whom have likely never played a Witcher title before. While The Witcher 4 is a direct continuation of The Witcher 3 and its many possible endings, it’s also being directed as part one of a planned new trilogy.

With this sort of 'requel' direction, CD Projekt Red will have Geralt replaced with a new protagonist to represent this new era of Witcher games: Geralt's adoptive daughter, Ciri of Cintra. Ciri is essentially The Witcher’s secondary protagonist, and she was briefly playable in The Witcher 3, so CD Projekt Red thought it was about time for Ciri to take center stage in her own game. That said, she won’t be on her journey as a newly made witcher alone.

Geralt is expected to appear in The Witcher 4, reprised by long-running Geralt voice actor Doug Cockle, likely in an unplayable supporting role.

How Guerrilla Games Could Take Inspiration From The Witcher 4 for Horizon

While The Witcher 4 is still in development and remains to be seen how fans will react after playing Ciri’s protagonist debut, Guerrilla Games could be influenced by CD Projekt Red’s direction with The Witcher franchise to determine how they’ll take the Horizon franchise going forward after Horizon 3. Aloy is a beloved protagonist to many gamers, but she has already been used in supportive roles to a new protagonist before in one Horizon spin-off, Horizon Call of the Mountain.

Here, players embodied the former Shadow Carja rebel Ryas during the events of Horizon Zero Dawn as he investigated rogue machines and tracked down the violent Oseram rebel Asera.

With Horizon 3 expected to deal with the world-ending threat of the rogue Far Zenith AI Nemesis, it’s probable that a few major characters from the Horizon series may perish in the fight against the alien AI. Aloy may be one of these unfortunate deaths, possibly sacrificing herself to save the world, but even if she doesn’t die, there are already many characters who could take up the starring role in Horizon 4 while Aloy retires or plays more of a supportive role akin to Geralt in The Witcher 4.

Potential New Protagonists for Horizon 4

At first glance, a likely option to replace Aloy as the starring protagonist for the Horizon franchise would be the fellow Elisabet Sobeck clone, Beta. Rather, she’s depicted as being highly anxious and occasionally pessimistic compared to the outgoing Aloy and Sobeck. While Beta does grow a bit in Forbidden West, she’ll have to change a lot in Horizon 3 to become a worthy successor to the Savior of Meridian in Horizon 4. Beta could grow out of her shell to become a more engaging and selfless person in Horizon 3, but she’d likely want to stay at The Base or other facilities to conduct research and technical projects that can aid Aloy and their allies, away from direct harm from violent tribes and machines.

Another potential candidate to replace Aloy as the protagonist of the Horizon franchise could be Erend or Talanah. Both are some of Aloy’s closest friends and have proved themselves to be admirable warriors and leaders in their own right to their fellow Carja and Oseram tribesmen.

Erend and Talanah could be fun to play as in Horizon 4, but their duties to the Vanguard and Hunters Lodge could possibly restrict them from going on exploratory adventures across post-apocalyptic landscapes. Another potential lead for Horizon 4 could be Varl and Zo’s unborn child. If Aloy survives her fight against Nemesis, she’ll likely be a supportive aunt to Zo’s child and may help train them to become a strong warrior similar to how Rost trained Aloy as a child.

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