Early Horizon Forbidden West Reviews Pose Major Threat to Nintendo’s 2022 Ambitions

Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Forbidden West is off to a flying start, ahead of its official debut later this week. As far as the early reactions are concerned, the awaited sequel is currently receiving an amazing response from the critics.

Fans of Horizon Forbidden West must be getting a sense of relief right now. Because they can be confident in their decision to go for the second installment of the franchise.

However, the ongoing review wave for Horizon 2 might not turn out to be a positive sign for another awaited game of 2022. And it’s none other than Nintendo’s sequel to 2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

READ MORE: Top 10 Nintendo Games of All Time

Will Horizon Forbidden West pose a threat to Nintendo’s Zelda 2?

Firstly, let’s talk about the current momentum of positive reviews for the Guerrilla title set to arrive on Friday.

When it comes to some of the highly reputed portals, Horizon Forbidden West has succeeded in impressing their gaming critics. To start with, IGN has given it a phenomenal 9/10 while GameSpot also showered a solid 8/10 upon the sequel.

Going even further, GameInformer, in its review, provided a stellar score of 9.3/10. Same is the case with other platforms like Inverse, Wccftech, CGMagazine, and VGC.

Speaking of the overall aggregate reception, as of the time of writing, then the widely followed website Metacritic gave Horizon Forbidden West an exceptional score of 89.

Simply put, Horizon Forbidden West seems to be a hit already with the fans, even before the launch. Whenever an upcoming title receives amazing critical reception, just days ahead of its release, it mostly ends up doing well on the sales front as well.

Although, in case you missed it, Horizon 2 is an open-world, action adventure based project. And a similarly looking game is just about to arrive later in 2022. It will be unveiled from the publisher Nintendo.

Going by the reactions to the title, The Legend of Zelda 2 may end up facing a situation of genre fatigue, from gamers who picked up Horizon Forbidden West, because both games fall under the same category.

Because if there already exists a title that has all the adventurous moments, action sequences, and most importantly a female protagonist with bow and arrow, why would players opt for another game having a common theme?

But then again, these are just theories. And given that Zelda 2 is one of the most awaited games of the year, the Nintendo title might defy the odds upon its launch.

Horizon Forbidden West will make its way on February 18 for PS5 and PS4.

WATCH THIS STORY: Best Zelda Titles of All Time on Nintendo Switch