Even though Guerrilla Games deserves credit for a lot of the design decisions it made while creating Horizon Forbidden West, it should get special credit for the game's final story quest. Despite being an expansive open-world RPG, most of the discourse surrounding the PS4 and PS5 game has been dominated by that section and what comes next. Fans are particularly eager for the inevitable third installment in Aloy's adventures and her showdown with the Nemesis AI.
Horizon Forbidden West's closing chapter had multiple layers to it, though. Just as important as its foreshadowing and exposition was the giant machine battle that took place throughout it in the background. Based on the direction that Guerrilla’s series is seemingly now heading, it stands to reason that the final quest could have set the stage for Horizon 3. Not only would it make sense for similar scale battles to feature, but they would also likely benefit the game too.
Forbidden West’s Final Quest
As far as payoffs go, Horizon Forbidden West’s final story quest hit a lot of the right notes. Having quested for hours, the player and Aloy were finally able to put a plan to stop the Far Zenith into action. From a narrative perspective, Guerrilla Games pulled together most of the characters that had featured in The Base and made sure they all had an active role in the mission. While several characters helped tease Nemesis’ plans, one also had a large impact on the mission itself.
Although she was physically being held hostage at the time, Beta was able to free HEPHAESTUS before injecting the AI into the Far Zenith computer network. Once the entity was free, it then set about creating a giant army of machines to repel the colonist’s Specter robots. Beyond offering Aloy’s clone sister a satisfying resolution to her own character arc in Forbidden West, it also set up one of the game’s most memorable chain of events.
While the Horizon series has become synonymous with frantic encounters, most have been personal affairs that involved Aloy fighting off specific machines. Forbidden West’ s HEPHAESTUS and Specter war was subsequently on a different level to anything that had come before it. Even though the player was unable to engage in the fight directly, seeing the robots engage each other was still a gratifying experience akin to the battles seen in other media like The Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones.
Horizon 3’s Battles
Considering the seemingly inevitable Horizon 3 will focus on Aloy’s quest to stop Nemesis, it stands to reason that similar battles will feature in the future too. As the end of the series’ first trilogy, the game will be crying out for set pieces that live up to the occasion. Nemesis is the universe’s primary antagonist for added measure, so more large-scale battles to defeat it would be the perfect way to up the stakes while growing its infamy. Fighting it 1v1 doesn’t feel appropriate based on the effort that’s gone into building it up over two games.
Horizon Forbidden West's final story quest could serve as a blueprint for the studio to follow to make it happen, on multiple fronts. The game's closing act feels like a prologue of what's to come in the series from a narrative perspective, so it would make sense if the Guerrilla Games had decided to tease the tone and scale of its future there as well. Horizon 3 could end up feeling a lot like Mass Effect 3, with most of the player's actions and motives being geared toward a series of battles.
Most of the narrative groundwork that could justify more large-scale battles has already been done in-universe, too. HEPHAESTUS’ role as one of the Horizon franchise’s most prevalent villains means Aloy and her allies will have to deal with the AI at some point in Horizon 3. While the confrontation will likely involve a battle itself, it would make the most sense for it to return to GAIA afterward. Subsequently setting up the possibility of its machine-building capabilities being utilized in the fight against Nemesis.
Playing Horizon 3’s Battles
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The giant battle that takes place during Forbidden West’s final story quest could have set the stage for Guerrilla Games to take things even further in Horizon 3. While more battles on a similar scale seem like an inevitability based on the occasion, there’s a decent chance that the studio will up the ante and expand upon its previous work. There are gameplay innovations and choices it could make to its formula in particular that would push things into grander territory.
What’s helped to make Horizon Forbidden West’s Specter vs HEPHAESTUS encounter feel like a teaser of things to come is the fact that the player doesn’t engage with the fighting much directly. The point of Beta’s scheme to use the AI and its machines revolves around her creating a distraction for Aloy to come and free her. Most of the battle subsequently takes place in the background while the player engages Tilda and the other Far Zenith colonists instead.
While there’s no denying Forbidden West’s final battle is an impressive feat to watch play out secondhand, during Horizon 3 players should have the chance to engage in similar battles directly. Making each an event that Aloy participates in would have positive gameplay implications, and could even allow mechanics like machine taming and riding to flourish like never before. Aloy is more than a capable fighter, so it seems unlikely that her arsenal of weapons and skills won’t feature on a battlefield in the future.
Agency like this could be the name of the game more broadly speaking when it comes to Horizon 3 and its potential battles. During Forbidden West’s, players weren’t able to choose which machines aided them against the Far Zenith as HEPHAESTUS was still an independent entity. In the future, thanks to the story beats that might lead up to more battles, there’s a decent chance that will be different. Allowing players to pick their own machines would make the battles more personal, and could even feature elements from strategy games and the in-universe Machine Strike board game.
Horizon Forbidden West is available now on PS4 and PS5.