Horizon Forbidden West – how long to beat the new PS5 game?

With Horizon Forbidden West launching for PS4 and PS5 today, you might be curious if the game takes months to complete, or even whether you can binge the whole experience in one ing;e weekend? To help solve answer that, here's what you need to know about the game's length and how long it will take to roll credits. 

As outlined in T3's official Horizon Forbidden West review, the action RPG took me approximately 28 hours to roll credits. Now, depending on how you play the game you might be able to reduce that time a little or extend it by two or threefold. My playthrough primarily focused on the campaign outside of experimenting with the numerous side activities available. 

There are more than 15 additional side-mission variants, from Hunting Grounds and Melee Pits to Rebel Camps and Cauldrons. None of these are required to complete the main story but will naturally make it more difficult, as Aloy will likely be underpowered for the challenges ahead. Like the original, Horizon Forbidden West is packed with an abundance of lore via text and audio files, character bios, machine catalogues, and more. If you read every little bit of information, it would no doubt extend playtime quite significantly. 

So, can you beat Horizon in a weekend? Yes, absolutely. If you commit to the story alone and were happy with the additional challenge as a result of not levelling up Aloy, then yes it is possible. It would have to be a pretty intensive weekend but it is doable.

What would be better is to take your time, explore the world and try out the side-mission content to see what you enjoy. Guerilla Games has packed a lot into this new release and it's unlikely we'll get another entry in the Horizon series for half a decade, so enjoy it while it lasts. Also, if you are thinking of revisiting the first game in preparation, that will take you approximately 23 hours to beat the main campaign (via HowLongToBeat). 

Horizon Forbidden West officially launches across PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 on February 18th, 2022. Make sure to check out T3's official review to see if it's worth picking up.