Officially announced just yesterday on December 8 at The Game Awards, Burning Shores will release exclusively for the PS5. This expansion to Horizon Forbidden West was revealed to the world with a stunning trailer highlighting new areas for Aloy to explore and new threats to fight off. But what may have gone unseen by many was the small print confirming the DLC would only be available to download on PS5 consoles. Meaning anyone playing on last-gen hardware will be missing out on the next stage of Aloy’s journey.
According to a post on their official website, developers Guerrilla claim that this is in order to achieve their “grand vision” for the DLC. The full quote reads, “To achieve this grand vision technically and creatively, we’ve made the difficult decision to focus all our efforts on making an incredible experience exclusively for the PlayStation®5 console”.
With the PS5’s SSD allowing for seamless loading and its improved processing power creating some truly stunning worlds and graphics, it was inevitable that its predecessor would be left behind eventually. Even with supply issues still limiting player count, 2023 seems to be the year that last-gen will finally be left behind. Guerrilla has just been one of the first studios to officially take the plunge.
Exploring the Burning Shores
The expansion itself – Burning Shores – will take Aloy on a brand-new adventure to the “untamed wilds of Los Angeles”, which has now become “a treacherous volcanic archipelago”. A dangerous place where it seems a truly colossal ancient evil has begun to stir.
As Guerrilla puts it in their post, “Our creative vision for the Burning Shores is an ambitious expansion which will take Aloy to the ruins of Los Angeles. It’s an overgrown and fractured city that can be fully explored via the water and flying on the back of a Sunwing. A massive machine threat lurks in its shadows – a huge challenge that Aloy must overcome by using all of her skills and abilities”.
Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is coming to PlayStation 5 consoles on 19 April 2023. And presumably, the base game and expansion will be coming to PC, too. Likely late next year.
