Horizon Forbidden West is an action role-playing game from Guerilla Games and it's the highly anticipated sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn. Set six months after the ending of the first game, a red blight has begun to infect the land. With her world in danger, Aloy must set out into the Forbidden West to find a way to save it.
However, the blight is not the only danger she will face. Threats seem to come from all over in the Forbidden West and Aloy needs to find a way to safely navigate it all. The predecessor to Forbidden West (Zero Dawn), has quite a large open-world map. Within that, there are countless things to do. Naturally, with the sequel on its way, many people have been wondering about the new map.
In this guide, we're going to answer a pivotal question for any open-world game. How big is the map for Forbidden West?
How Big Is the Map?
The map below shows the entire area that you can freely explore in Horizon Forbidden West.
In the Guerilla Talks video, Game Director Mathijs De Jonge told us that the setting for the game takes Aloy from Utah, USA all the way to the Pacific Coast in the West. If you want to gauge how big this map is in the game, the rough real-life distance between Utah and San Francisco is 906 miles. Now, it's worth mentioning that the map for Horizon Zero Dawn was set in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming. The map itself had scaled these areas down to make them more conducive to a fun in-game experience, which is a similar concept for the map in Horizon Forbidden West
- Refresh Your Memory: Read our Horizon Zero Dawn Story Recap.
Is the Forbidden West Map Open-World?
Yes! Just like the first game, the map for Forbidden West is open-world. There are multiple ways that you can explore the world. Of course, she can still have her trusty mounts when she overrides a machine, but she now has a grappling tool called a Pullcaster. This can pull her to new heights, giving her more places to explore on the map. There are plenty of new areas for Aloy to scale too as more of an emphasis has been put on climbing in this game. Aloy can use focus to scan for climbing holds and this will reveal multiple new ways to scale obstacles.
Are There Different Environments?
There are quite a few distinct environments that you can explore on your adventure through the Forbidden West:
- Tropical: Dense and overground tropical jungle areas, filled with vegetation.
- Coastal: Sandy Beaches that run along coastal paths.
- Desert: In the machines trailer, the Slitherfang can be seen moving through a seemingly barren desert environment.
- Underwater: Aloy can now swim underwater and explore sunken ruins.
- Snowy and Mountainous Terrain: As seen in the Tribes Trailer, climbing up treacherous icy cliffs and navigating snowy hills can take you to one of the Tenakth Clans.
Horizon Forbidden West is available now for PS4 and PS5.
A whole world awaits you in Horizon Forbidden West, but so do many threats. That's why it might be a good idea for you to check out our machines list. In it, we detail all of the new machines in the game as well as ones that have returned from the original. You'll need a few strong weapons to fight those machines with too. You can find all of the new weapons and ammunition types in Forbidden West in our handy guide.
Contributions from Nico Parungo.