Horizon Forbidden West’s 2022 slip ‘is decided and delayed’, another report claims

Sony Interactive Entertainment has “decided and delayed” Horizon Forbidden West into next year, another report has claimed.

Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier wrote in a new article on Friday that he could corroborate claims made earlier by GamesBeat’s Jeff Grubb, who had suggested the game would likely slip into 2022.

“Sony Corp. has delayed the upcoming PlayStation game Horizon Forbidden West to the first quarter of 2022, according to a person familiar with the matter,” Schreier wrote, adding on Twitter: “I am telling you it is decided and delayed.”

On Thursday, journalist Jeff Grubb had first said on his Giant Bomb show that he’d heard via a source that Sony would likely push the Guerrilla title to next year and could announce the slip in a live stream around September.

“It seems like the original rumor was that Sony hadn’t decided yet, but my understanding is that the game was delayed a little while ago,” Bloomberg’s Schreier commented on Friday.

Sony previously warned that Horizon Forbidden West might not be released during this calendar year as planned, stating that it wasn’t prepared to compromise quality or the health of its developers to get the game out during a period when triple-A game development has been pummelled by the pandemic.

PlayStation Studios boss Hermen Hulst, who was speaking as part of a PlayStation Blog Q&A announcing God of War PS5’s delay to 2022, refused to rule out the possibility of Forbidden West also slipping to next year.

“So we have, currently, two very big, very narrative-driven games in development: Horizon Forbidden West and the next God of War. And for both of those, they’re frankly affected by access to performance capture and talent,” he said.

“For Horizon, we think we are on track to release this holiday season. But that isn’t quite certain yet, and we’re working as hard as we can to confirm that to you as soon as we can.

“And for God of War, the project started a little later. So we’ve made the decision to push that game out to next year, to ensure that Santa Monica Studio can deliver the amazing God of War game that we all want to play.

“With these things, something’s gotta give,” Hulst continued. “It cannot be the quality of our titles, and it surely won’t be the health or the wellbeing of our amazing team.”