It’s been a long time coming (14 months and one day, to be exact) but “Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores” is finally (almost!) here. The DLC will take Aloy to a new region of post-robot-apocalypse America where she’ll encounter new machines, friends, and enemies in a compelling new story. In the leadup to release, developer Guerrilla Games has been dropping deets about the expansion, and we’ve rounded up everything we’ve learned right here.
When Does “Burning Shores” Unlock In Australia?
“Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores” comes out on Wednesday, April 19. According to the pre-order page, it unlocks at midnight local time.
Good news: pre-loading has begun for everyone who owns the expansion — which costs $29.95 from the PlayStation Store. That’s a lot less than we’ve seen other expansions going for recently, which is nice. But sorry to anyone who prefers physical copies, because “Burning Shores” is digital only — at least for now.
Pre-ordering “Burning Shores” gets you two digital bonuses: the Blacktide Dye Outfit and the Blacktide Sharpshot Bow. The bow is available from the first merchant you come across in the new region, and the outfit is available from the first dye merchant.
How Big Is the “Burning Shores” Install?
According to PlayStation Game Size, the expansion is a 16.8 GB download in EU regions. That varies slightly in Japan and the US because of localisation files, but Australians can expect a download between 15GB and 17GB.
That’s on top of the base game’s 90GB-ish install since you need “Horizon Forbidden West” to play the expansion. Compared to the base game, “Burning Shores” is quite a small download, which matches its cheaper price tag. That makes it highly likely the length will be similar to the first game’s expansion, which averaged at 7.5 hours for the main story and 17.5 hours for 100 percent completion.
Who Is Seyka In “Burning Shores”?
The “Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores” launch trailer introduced the Quen warrior Seyka, who’ll be Aloy’s companion in the expansion. Seyka is played by Kylie Liya Page, who you might recognise from “The Girl from Plainville”, a crime drama inspired by the real-life “texting suicide case” of Conrad Roy. Page plays Cassie, who testified against Michelle (Elle Fanning) in court.
Page describes Seyka as “another strong badass woman warrior.” (Bringing the count of those in the Horizon series to at least 87, we love to see it!) As protectors of their people, Aloy and Seyka are very evenly matched and we can’t wait to see them work together. We anticipate tension and lots of live, laugh, love between them.
Ashley Burch, voice of Aloy, said it best: “Aloy may have met her match.”
Is “Burning Shores” On PS4?
It’s been confirmed that the expansion is a PS5 exclusive. That’s for sure disappointing for PS4 players, but it comes down to the waning power of the console. Or, more specifically and humorously: it comes down to clouds.
See, “Burning Shores” will have a big focus on flying machines, so Guerrilla Games wanted to make sure the clouds were better than ever. The team went so far as to engineer an entirely new method for rendering realistic, volumetric clouds. The result is that the clouds in “Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores” are their own explorable environments, rather than flat images that look good on the outside but are empty on the inside. This is surprisingly hard to do and required a lot of processing power that only the PS5 was capable of.
“The clouds are not simply immersive scenery but an explorable landscape in themselves,” said Andrew Schneider, principal FX artist at Guerrilla. “Among the clouds, players will be able to explore tunnels, caves, and other surprises that make for fun flying.”
What Is “Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores” About?
“Burning Shores” picks up where the main game left off and takes Aloy to the untamed wilds of a far-future Los Angeles. This version of LA is now part of Tenakth Clan Lands, but it’s been reduced to a volcanic hellscape that’s devastated by violent earthquakes and overrun by sinister machines. Aloy will embark on a compelling new storyline featuring new characters, machines, and adventures. That’s all we know so far!
Do I Have to Finish “Horizon Forbidden West” First?
Yep. “Burning Shores” is only available once you’ve finished the main storyline, including the final quest “Singularity”. Following that, Aloy will receive a call over her Focus to begin the expansion.
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