Today, during a State of Play digital showcase, Sony showed off 14 minutes of gameplay for Horizon Forbidden West, the much-anticipated sequel to 2017's awesomest open-world robot dinosaur-hunting game.
The demo opens on the beachfront ruins of San Francisco, six months after the events of Horizon Zero Dawn. Raiders show up, riding machines, leading a captured Erend (the guy with the silly facial hair from the first game) in tow. He almost gets stepped on by a dino, twice.
Forbidden West looks to feature the bread-and-butter archery-based combat that made the first game such a standout, but it looks like protagonist Aloy has a deeper bag of tricks for the sequel. She’s got a glider, for one thing, and some sort of electrified staff, and some sweet Naughty Dog-style finishing moves. Like we saw in last year’s cinematic announcement, Aloy dives underwater for some claustrophobic gameplay, and even takes on one of those mechanized don’t-call-it-an-oliphant monstrosities.
Actually, to hell with words. You want gameplay? Here’s gameplay:
Horizon Forbidden West is planned for release later this year for PS4 and PS5. No release date today, but developer Guerrilla Games says an update is coming “very soon.”