According to rumors, there's plenty more Horizon Zero Dawn coming in the future, and for good reason. The first game received a lot of praise upon its release on the PS4, so its no surprise there's potentially more games in the Horizon franchise coming. Although most recently, rumors have come out stating that Horizon Zero Dawn was always meant to be the first of a trilogy that was greenlit by Sony. With further entries presumably coming to the PS5, it does pose an interesting question.
The purported Horizon Zero Dawn trilogy may become segmented if there really are two more entries in development for PS5. Assuming Guerilla Games began development soon after the original game came out, there's no way the developer had access to next-generation hardware that early. That poses a problem, considering the first game released on PS4 but its sequels will presumably come to PS5 and above, unless the sequel is further along than it seems and will be a cross-generational release between PS4 and PS5. Needless to say, there are a few solutions to this.
Horizon Zero Dawn's Future
For those who never opted in for the first game, Horizon Zero Dawn was an open-world adventure set in a post, post-apocalyptic world where modern society has disappeared and an unusual wilderness had sprung. Tribes of humans explored a vast and open wilderness rife with machine creatures whose origins are unknown. Aloy, the protagonist, transitions from her cloistered life with her father and is thrust into an adventure of discovery and redemption. Being the first project from Guerrilla Games that wasn't a Killzone title, Horizon was incredibly ambitious for the developer and led to great success for the game.
Considering the game's popularity and critical success, it's not surprising that Horizon Zero Dawn would receive a sequel of some kind. Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the best-selling PS4 titles of the generation, and won numerous awards from the industry for its world and character performances. Beginning development in 2011 after Killzone 3, Horizon was in active development for six years before releasing in 2017 to great acclaim. This presents a problem if a sequel is truly on the way, as it means there's going to be an entire console generation but only a few years distance between the sequel and the original Horizon Zero Dawn.
Staggered Releases
This is a bit unusual for a brand new intellectual property to release an entire trilogy in such a staggered release manner. There have been other PS4 games that will likely have a similar sequel situation, but most of them are known properties with expected success like Final Fantasy 7 Remake or Marvel's Spider-Man. Not only that, these games aren't necessarily succinct trilogies. Even with The Last of Us 2, with the original game coming out on PS3, there was a desire to finish the story even though the game had a solid standalone ending. For Horizon Zero Dawn to plan this far ahead for a brand new franchise is not typical, but even more importantly will be how the next sequel will release.
There's a chance the next Horizon game could be a cross-generational release for PS4 and PS5, or it's strictly released for Ps5. Either way it's a little strange for an IP that basically just started only three years ago to already have a sequel coming to a new console generation. Perhaps it's just an issue with unlucky timing, but it does make the sequel's release staggered in such a short amount of time. Guerilla Games could potentially port the sequel to next-gen consoles, considering Horizon Zero Dawn is already on the way to PC.
Perhaps backwards compatibility is Horizon Zero Dawn's best advantage from preventing the Horizon series from being disjointed by a console gap. Especially when it comes to roping in new fans of the series, players may not have to struggle with getting an old console to play the original iteration of a trilogy.
AÂ Horizon Zero Dawn trilogy is reportedly in development.
