Horizon Forbidden West Is in the "Final Stages" of Development

Horizon Forbidden West has been in the headlines quite a bit over the past week after PlayStation showed off more of the open-world title not long ago in a State of Play presentation. While that showcase didn't have a new release date attached with it, the developers behind the project at Guerrilla Games have now verified that the highly-anticipated sequel is very much close to being finished.

Speaking to Hardware Zone in a new interview, Horizon Forbidden West game director Mathijs de Jonge stressed that the game is nearing the end of development. Specifically, he stated that the beta portion of the game has now been wrapped up, which means all that remains is polishing from this point onward. "We have just successfully completed our beta milestone, which is pretty far along. We're now in the final stages of development," de Jonge made clear. "So we are polishing the game and fixing bugs. We are also wrapping up certain aspects of the game, like some of the machines being behind schedule - because it takes an enormous amount of time to build them. We're working on the final cinematic. So, we're really wrapping up. There's still a lot to do with a game of this size and magnitude, but we're in the final stages."

So what does this mean for the actual release date of Horizon Forbidden West? Well, that remains to be seen. PlayStation confirmed just a couple of days ago that it's still aiming to have the sequel launch later this holiday season. However, it also noted that this window could change and that the project might get pushed into 2022. Game development has become quite difficult over the past year in the wake of the ongoing pandemic as many developers have had to shift to working from home. As such, release dates have become harder to pin down than normal.

Still, Horizon Forbidden West is at the very least still on track for 2021 based on what we know at the moment. And when the game does launch, it will be available across both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 platforms.