Horizon 3: The Case for Staying Within Zero Dawn and Forbidden West’s Maps

Guerrilla Games’ Horizon series is one of the more recent Sony exclusive franchises that achieved great success and now counts among PlayStation’s best and highest rated single-player experiences. With 2017’s Horizon: Zero Dawn and the 2022 sequel Horizon: Forbidden West, players were introduced to a “post-post-apocalyptic” world that was very different from most other games with the same framework. Instead of the usual fare of drab blasted out wastelands, the Horizon titles were set in a lush recreation of portions of the Mid and Western United States. Their areas were more visually and impressively vibrant compared to their contemporaries, and thus stood out among them.