Horizon Forbidden West Drops Surprise Free PS5 Update

After several years of dormancy, Horizon Forbidden West has just made an unexpected comeback.

Developer Guerrilla Games has taken to Twitter/X to reveal that a free new update is rolling out across PlayStation 5 consoles which adds an interesting new feature.

It's a feature that's been implemented in a number of first-party PlayStation exclusives in recent months, yet it's still surprising to see given just how little we've heard from Horizon Forbidden West in the last couple of years.

The game landed in 2023 with a DLC expansion, Burning Shores, arriving one year later in 2024. For almost two years, however, its been radio silence on the game.

If you are planning a new playthrough though, the newly released Patch 1.30 introduces Power Saver settings that'll help reduce power consumption which'll make playing the game both more economical and better for the environment.

Horizon Forbidden West Update 1.30 Patch Notes

You can read the full patch notes for the update below. Warning, they're pretty short and sweet.

NEW FEATURES

• Added support for Power Saver settings.
• Learn more about how to turn on Power Saver settings on the PlayStation Support page.

If you're eager to learn more about what Power Saver achieves, it essentially reduces consumption by reducing performance.

"When you turn on this option, supported PS5 games will scale back performance and will allow your PS5 to reduce its power consumption," that aforementioned blog post notes.

"If not enabled, or if games do not support the feature, the performance will not be scaled back and power consumption will not be reduced."

That may sound a tad worrying but you probably won't actually notice the reduction in performance otherwise no one would elect to use the feature.

As for what's in store in the Horizon franchise's future, two new games are on the way, although neither of them are mainline instalment starring Aloy.

Clearly, Guerrilla is planning to create another mainline entry as both Horizon Forbidden West and Burning Shores teased what's to come with Aloy needing to defeat Nemesis, the rogue AI set on destroying Earth, based on the thoughts of the Far Zenith.

For now though, the studio is developing the upcoming co-op action game Horizon: Hunter's Gathering. It moves the franchise into the live-service sector, opting for Fortnite-esque graphics instead of photorealism.

SIE

There's no release window for this one but it did recently hold its first playtest. It's due to land on PlayStation 5 and PC.

Then, there's Horizon Steel Frontiers which is strangely being developed by NetEase for PC and mobile. This one's also live-service but is a MMO that does utilise the typical aesthetic of the franchise.

Are either of these projects really want fans want? Perhaps not, but they should tide us over until the next mainline entry arrives, even if Hunter's Gathering probably has delayed that next entry by several years.