Guerrilla Games hit it big with Horizon Zero Dawn in 2017, creating one of Sony’s most recognizable modern PlayStation franchises. Sony has pushed Aloy and her post-apocalyptic universe by promoting Horizon Forbidden West as a PS5 showcase and announcement Horizon Call of the Mountain as the PSVR 2’s killer app. A recent rumor also suggests: Zero Dawn is getting a PS5 remaster in addition to a potential multiplayer spin-off. While many would expect this spin-off to involve group archery, it might make sense for Guerrilla to tap into its history with kill zone and make a prequel around the Faro Plague.
Although this rumor also hinted at: Horizon Forbidden West coming to PC, most of the conversation has revolved around the need to remaster a five-year-old game so soon after Naughty Dog’s The last of us part 1. Other PlayStation exclusive titles such as Bloodborne who arguably need more updates have started trending online in response. However, a multiplayer game set in the Horizon universe has a lot of potential, especially by using the demise of humanity to create a heartfelt, tragic story around a high-octane gunfight.
Horizon: What Was the Faro Plague?
The Horizon franchise is set in the distant future, where Aloy only exists because life on Earth has been reseeded through Project Zero Dawn. Via audio logs and main story missions in Horizon Zero Dawn, players discover that the planet’s ecosystem has been wiped out by robots developed at Faro Automated Solutions (FAS). CEO Ted Faro gained notoriety for his company’s work in the fight against climate change along with Elisabet Sobeck, but he wiped out much of that goodwill by turning FAS into military contracts.
FAS’ line of Chariot robots were ostensibly “peacekeepers,” designed to be hacker-resistant and never fall into the wrong hands. The Greenhouse facility in San Francisco in Forbidden West also gives fans a glimpse into the Chariot line’s unique ability to consume biomatter as fuel and reproduce through Horus units – aka Metal Devils to the planet’s future inhabitants. Of course, all this backfires when a swarm of rogue and other machines “corrupt”.
Seeing no way to stop the so-called Faro plague sweeping the planet, Elisabet Sobeck starts Project Zero Dawn to design AIs capable of cracking the code of the Chariot robots and then repopulate the Earth using autonomously designed animal machines around the land, sea, and air. She enlists military leaders to buy time for Zero Dawn’s completion through Operation: Enduring Victory, which summoned millions of civilians to fight the Faro scourge in the belief that the project is a superweapon.
How a Horizon Multiplayer Shooter can thrive with a lasting win
A multiplayer game could be easily played in the more primal future described by Guerrilla where players select members of their favorite Horizon tribe and hunt giant robots together – or each other if it takes a PvP impact. In terms of world building and expanding the scope of what this brand can be, a military shooter starring inexperienced soldiers lined up for Operation: Enduring Victory could go a few different ways.
On the one hand, this Faro Plague battle simulator could be a four-player cooperative shooter similar to Left 4 Dead that requires precision strikes to destroy gangs of Scarab-class robots before they overwhelm the party. That same gunfight can be adapted into a more typical competitive scene if the developer is concerned with gameplay over knowledge, or the game can get more out of Valve’s formula by letting player-controlled robots fight survivors. Even bigger encounters like Khopesh or Horus-class robots can also set up asymmetric deathmatches.
Guerrilla Games would be well equipped to handle a basic co-op or PvP shooter, thanks to the nearly 10 years it’s been working on kill zonehis major sci-fi franchise prior to Horizon Zero Dawn. There can’t be a happy ending for a title centered around the Faro Plague, but there could be catharsis in watching a group of soldiers deliver the parts or hold the line long enough to complete Project Zero Dawn, not other than Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. That formula has proven to be just as effective in video games like Halo 3: ODSTand a Horizon spin-off may end with Elisabet Sobeck closing the last door to protect GAIA Prime before going to her childhood home where Aloy later finds her body.
Horizon Forbidden West is now available on PS4 and PS5.
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