Highlights

  • Horizon Forbidden West excels as a top-tier open-world game with stunning visuals, engaging activities, and massive robot adversaries.
  • Despite initial overshadowing, the PC release of Horizon Forbidden West has propelled the franchise back into the spotlight.
  • As PlayStation aims for live-service success, launching Horizon multiplayer on PC from day one is crucial for maximizing its playerbase.

The Horizon franchise has had a pretty interesting history so far. After working solely on the Killzone series for the best part of a decade, Guerrilla Games decided it wanted to try its hand at something completely new, and thus Horizon Zero Dawn was born. Debuting in 2017, the Horizon series has quickly become one of PlayStation's flagship properties. Now, Horizon Forbidden West cements the franchise as some of the most impressive open-world video game offerings out there.

Building off the first game's excellent groundwork, Horizon Forbidden West offers a gigantic, gorgeous open world to explore, filled with engaging side activities, hulking robot monsters, and breathtaking vistas. Horizon Forbidden West quickly proved itself to be one of the best PlayStation first-party games of the generation, and as of March 2024, PC players can now experience the game for themselves.

Horizon forbidden west promo art aloy and friends
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Horizon Forbidden West's PC Sales Are a Big Deal For a Few Different Reasons

The Horizon Series Has Always Been Overshadowed

The Horizon franchise has had an infamous history of being overshadowed by some of the biggest games of all time. Released back in February 2017, Horizon Zero Dawn was surrounded by huge releases like the long-awaited return of the Resident Evil franchise, a much-requested sequel to Halo Wars, and of course, the launch of the Nintendo Switch, which brought with it massive games like Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and eventually, Super Mario Odyssey. Though Horizon Zero Dawn earned a great deal of critical praise and its sales were still excellent, it took some time for the game to earn the recognition it deserved.

Horizon Forbidden West then stumbled into the same pitfall in early 2022, launching just a week before Elden Ring, one of the most anticipated video game releases of all time. Horizon Forbidden West didn't even have the courtesy of being the only major PlayStation first-party release in 2022, with God of War Ragnarok dropping at the end of the year and stealing much of the spotlight.

But the Horizon franchise may have just gotten its biggest break yet. Despite it being a fairly subtle launch, Horizon Forbidden West's PC release has seemingly shot the game back into the public consciousness. According to industry analyst Mat Piscatella, Horizon Forbidden West managed to shoot up to the US market's top 10 best-selling video games just following the game's weekend launch on Steam back in March. This is particularly impressive considering that Forbidden West wasn't even in the top 100 best-selling games in the US the week prior.

Horizon Might Need a Second Home Soon

The Horizon series has, and probably always will be, a PlayStation franchise first and foremost, but that mindset might need to change soon. Though its plans have been chopped and changed a few times over the last few years, PlayStation is still aiming to release at least six live-service games by March 2026, and it's going to need all the help it can get to make these games successful on launch, and keep that success going long after.

The recently released Helldivers 2 has proven just how influential the PC market can be. Releasing simultaneously on PS5 and PC, Helldivers 2 has had an incredibly successful launch, and with over 200,000 PC players currently active at the time of writing (according to SteamDB) it shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Though Helldivers 2 would probably still be successful if it was exclusive to the PS5, it wouldn't be raking in nearly as many players, and that's something PlayStation needs to keep in mind for its future live-service games—games like the still-unannounced Horizon multiplayer title. With Horizon Forbidden West making a big impact on Steam, and Helldivers 2 proving that a PlayStation live-service game can thrive on PC, it's clear that the Horizon multiplayer game needs to launch on PC on day one.