The release of Horizon: Forbidden West is only a few short weeks away, and the excitement for it is steadily rising among fans. Unfortunately, an unfinished PS4 build of the game seems to have leaked, and unofficial screenshots are beginning to make the internet rounds. It's become all too common nowadays for video games to leak before their official releases, but many fans of the Horizon series have been waiting for the follow-up since Horizon Zero Dawn launched in 2017 and are hoping to go into the sequel completely fresh.
Given the inherently connected nature of the internet, that might not be totally possible, but there are ways to lower the risks of seeing unwanted spoilers for the game. It's worth noting that it's currently unclear if the leaked Horizon: Forbidden West build has any story content included in it, but it's always better to be safe than sorry. It takes just one look at Halo Infinite and The Last of Us 2's spoiled releases to see how disappointing it can be when major story beats are revealed out of context and not as part of the intended experience.
Avoiding Horizon: Forbidden West Spoilers
Social media is a tricky thing to handle when leaks are being spread. On one hand, places like Twitter and Reddit are great platforms to find like-minded fans of a game such as Horizon: Forbidden West who are excited about its release. On the other hand, platforms are very easily misused and allow for spoilers to be spread instantly. A surefire way to avoid those spoilers would be to stay off social media sites entirely until the game comes out; however, that's not a particularly practical solution. Luckily, there are ways to avoid specific content on both Twitter and Reddit that will let fans use the apps without the fear of being spoiled.
On Twitter, fans should go into their content preferences and mute any and all words pertaining to Horizon: Forbidden West as well as Horizon Zero Dawn. These include names such as "Aloy," "Carja," and "Erend" as well as the games' titles and any permutations of them, along with any hashtags that could be used to share information about the series. It's also a good idea to close DMs to strangers, as people maliciously sharing leaks have sent them to community members of games like Halo Infinite and The Last of Us 2 in hopes of spoiling the game for them. Luckily, that's entirely avoidable as long as the user is willing to close their DMs until Horizon Forbidden West launches.
On Reddit, it might be a good idea to unfollow any Horizon Zero Dawn subreddits until the game comes out. In major subreddits, mods are usually pretty good at either taking spoiler-filled leaks down or making sure that they're all given the "spoiler" tag, but sometimes things slip through the cracks - meaning that mods might not be able to catch everything before it goes live. Similar to Twitter, it's also wise to close DMs on Reddit to avoid getting a spoiler bomb.
If someone is currently playing through Horizon Zero Dawn in anticipation of Forbidden West, they may be looking up guides on Google. Unfortunately, they can be spoiled there as well since Google's autofill guesses what someone is searching based on what others are searching at the same time. For example, typing "horizon" into the search bar could result in an autofill option saying something like "horizon forbidden west *x-character* death scene" or something similar. To avoid Google spoilers, players should copy and paste "horizon zero dawn" into the search bar in full so that Google won't autofill anything about the unreleased game. If gamers are careful, they should be able to avoid being spoiled before launch.
Horizon: Forbidden West launches on February 18 for PS4 and PS5.
