After being unusually quiet for the past few weeks, Guerilla sent shockwaves throughout the gaming community by announcing a new significant update for Horizon Forbidden West.
As a part of Sony’s State of Play, the developer first showcased the much-anticipated gameplay reveal trailer for PSVR 2 exclusive Horizon Call of the Mountain. While this was already a big surprise for enthusiasts, Guerilla Games had more in store.
In a bid to show that the team is not done with Horizon Forbidden West just yet, Narrative Director Ben McCaw announced that the open-world RPG would receive a significant patch that introduces a ton of quality of life features.
Called Patch 1.14, the update will add the much-desired New Game+ mode, allowing you to replay Horizon Forbidden West’s main story with all of your upgraded endgame weapons to fight more formidable enemies.
In addition to this, an Ultra Hard difficulty setting is also being introduced for those gamers who are ready to step it up a notch by taking on more robust and competent beasts.
Improved visual fidelity of Performance mode, an option to reassign skill points as one pleases, and a new trophy set, kind of like God of War Easter egg achievements, have also found its way to Forbidden West, thanks to the update.
Another standout feature that Guerilla has added to the RPG is the ability to transmog outfits which “allows [you] to easily customize the cosmetics of their equipped outfit to look like any other owned outfit.”
This basically implies that you can now kiss the dilemma of choosing between style and stats goodbye.
Last but not least, this colossal update also includes a 1.15 hotfix patch that improves The Arena text readability in Arabic, fixes HUD elements and Untalla’s dialogue issue.
You will find the full patch notes below:
NEW FEATURES
We’re so thankful for our incredibly talented community and are happy to announce that this major update includes much-requested features, including:
New Game+
- Ultra Hard difficulty mode when selecting the difficulty for New Game or New Game Plus
- Reset Skills functionality within the menu
- New functionality to apply a different look to Aloy’s armor.
- New Rewards available in New Game+ (Weapons, Dyes and Face Paints)
- A New Trophy Set
FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
Performance and Stability
- Improved visual fidelity in Performance Mode.
- Multiple crash fixes.
Main Quests
- Fixed an issue in Main Quest “The Sea of Sands” where progression was blocked when trying to open the valve.
- Fixed an issue in Main Quest “The Broken Sky” where the quest would become stuck if the cinematic was skipped too fast.
- Fixed an issue in Main Quest “The Dying Lands” where the quest did not progress after defeating the Grimhorn.
Side Quests
- Fixed an issue in Side Quest “Breaking Even” where the beams that need to be interacted with would not be present.
World Activities
- Fixed an issue where fast-traveling to Rebel Outpost: High Turning would send Aloy somewhere else.
- Fixed an issue where the campfire in Rebel Camp: Devil’s Grasp would remain unavailable after completing the camp.
- Fixed an issue where an objective would not be completed in Rebel Camp: The Hive
- Fixed an issue in The Arena where the timer would continue counting down after defeating all the machines.
Datapoints
- Oops… Added World Datapoint 340347, which can be found somewhere near the Widemaw site on the Isle of Spires.
Machines
- Fixed an issue where the Tallneck shockblast would destroy all other machines.
- Fixed an issue where the Fireclaw would not go into the Shocked or Knocked Down State when triggered during certain attacks.
- Fixed an issue where the Behemoth would be able to chain charge attacks in rapid succession.
- Fixed an issue where detached machine parts could fall through the floor.
Humanoids
- Reduced the armor health for the Quen Imperial Guard to be more in line with the other enemies.
Weapons
- Fixed an issue where the tier 4 Hammerburst Boltblaster would deal less damage than the tier 3 version.
- Fixed an issue where enemies would become suspicious when spotting an active Blast Trap.
- Fixed an issue where some weapons did not give Valor correctly.
- Reduced crafting costs for crafting Traps at a Workbench.
- Rebalanced crafting costs for Elite & Advanced Traps when crafting in the wild.
- Fixed an issue where some weapon perks did not give the correct values.
Skills
- Updated the Resilient Trapper skill with new values.
- Fixed an issue where the Braced Shot would become buffed in unintended ways.
UI/UX
- Fixed an issue where canisters would have different rarities.
- Added an option to show or hide grapple icons.
- Added a “Pry Open” option under the Hold/Toggle Accessibility Settings.
- Added an option for overriding machines to switch to ‘Toggle’ in the Accessibility Settings.
- Updated icons for various machine parts.
Performance and Stability
- Additional streaming fixes in game.
- Additional crash fixes.
Photo mode
- Added Filmgrain to photo mode. Grain scales with intensity: low values have small grain, high values increase the size of the grain, which leaves the higher values especially suited to black and white experimentation.
Other
- Fixed an issue where loot barrels would not get destroyed in one hit.
- Fixed an issue where overheal would not take the higher value when consuming Health Potions and Food at the same time.
- Fixed an issue where civilians would not always respond to rain.
- Fixed an issue where the Motion Aiming did not work for the second controller when using the Co-Pilot feature.
- Fixed an issue where Aloy could still control a mount when in the Shocked State.
- Fixed an issue where Aloy could crawl through a vent while holding a battery.
- Multiple localization and subtitles fixes and improvements.
- Multiple lighting fixes and improvements.
HOTFIX 1.15
- Fixed HUD elements showing simultaneously when starting the game in specific circumstances.
- Fixed an issue where the dialogue with Untalla did not complete the activity after handing in all Black Boxes.
- Fixed an issue where custom difficulty was not restored properly when loading a game that was made with custom difficulty selected.
- Improved The Arena text readability in Arabic.
About Horizon Forbidden West
Horizon Forbidden West is the sequel to 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn by Guerilla Games. An open-world, action adventure game, players control Aloy, a Nora hunter who is on a quest to reverse the effects of a strange crimson blight which is infecting the land. Set in a completely new world, Horizon Forbidden West has many new machines, threats and adventures for Aloy.
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