Trivia / Horizon Forbidden West

• Acting for Three: Ashly Burch voices both Aloy and Beta, two clones of the same woman (whom she also voices in audio and hologram datapoints). A few major plot-relevant dialogues feature her voicing both sides of the conversation. This is on top of her also voicing Elizabet Sobeck!
• All-Star Cast: Apart from returning cast members Ashly Burch and Lance Reddick, Angela Bassett and Carrie-Anne Moss lend their voices to the game. The Burning Shores DLC adds Sam Witwer to the cast.
• Author's Saving Throw:
  • Before patches, the "throw rock" button ^note on PS4 versions was the same as the "heavy melee attack" button, divided only by finicky input differences. Not only did this make throwing rocks impossible to reliably pull off, rock-throwing is mostly done during stealth, which attacking breaks. An improvement made it so that attacks are disabled once the rock tool has been selected.
  • One of the major criticisms of Zero Dawn was how most of the conversations in-game had generic, stiff movements that brought Mass Effect: Andromeda to mind. Forbidden West rectifies that in a big way by having every single conversation in the game, optional or otherwise, be uniquely motion-captured. It makes the game feel a lot more immersive now that Aloy and whoever she's talking to aren't just standing there flailing their arms a little anymore. But the dev team didn't stop there: if you don't select a dialogue option within a few seconds, Aloy and whoever she's talking to will begin to look around and fidget due to the awkward silence.
• Banned in China: Many Middle Eastern players reported that the Burning Shores DLC was unavailable for purchase in their local PlayStation stores, likely due to LGBTQ+ content, namely Aloy falling in love with Seyka and having the option to kiss her at the end of the main quest.
• Dueling Works: It released a week before Elden Ring after the latter was delayed from its original January 2022 window. Like Forbidden West, Elden Ring is an open world action role-playing game, and the close proximity between both games has also turned into a minor Fandom Rivalry.
• Follow the Leader: Guerrilla confirmed that Forbidden West will have two features that take clear inspiration from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which Zero Dawn both released close to and was heavily compared to. The first is increased climbing frequency, although it's not an exact copy: it's more that handholds can be clustered together and have a more natural appearance, compared to the Spider-Man suction cups of Breath of the Wild that lets Link climb up flat vertical surfaces. The other feature is the Shieldwing, which is an exact copy of the Paraglider, but this is generally accepted because having a way to quickly and safely get down from a high point without fall damage is that useful.
• In Memoriam:
  • There is a tucked-away island right at the edge of the Lowland Clan's territory where Aloy can find a small memorial to a "departed friend". This Easter Egg honors the death of Guerrilla Games' lead producer Patrick Munnik, who died in 2019. His name is also shown during the end credits.
  • Before the cast is listed in the credits for Burning Shores, there's a short tribute to Lance Reddick, who passed away shortly before the release of the DLC. Patch 1.26 added a small in-game memorial in the Burning Shores area, fittingly near the Walk of Fame with a view of the Hollywood sign.
• Multi-Disc Work: The Complete Edition shipped on two 100 GB Ultra HD Blu-ray discs, making it the first 9th generation game to do so.
• No Port For You: Due to technical limitations, the Burning Shores DLC will not see a release on the PlayStation 4 version. The PC version, however, will.
• Playing Against Type: Sam Witwer is known for playing heroic characters, or at the very least heroes with an anti-heroic bent. In Burning Shores, he plays the vile, irredeemably villainous Hate Sink Walter Londra.
• Queer Character, Queer Actor: Ashly Burch came out in 2022 as queer and pansexual. Forbidden West revealed that Elisabet Sobeck had a same-sex romantic relationship with Tilda, and the Burning Shores expansion gives Aloy a same-sex love interest in Seyka, whose feelings Aloy can reciprocate and pursue a relationship with.
• Schedule Slip: Was originally meant to come out sometime in 2021, but Sony delayed it to February 2022 due to the COVID-19 Pandemic making production hard; the studio needed extra time for the necessary motion capture.
• You Look Familiar: David Forseth portrayed Inatut in Frozen Wilds, before he portrays the Quen Devotee Fedder in Burning Shores.

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