Outfits in Horizon Forbidden West will have skills attached to them, Guerrilla Games has revealed.
In a post on the PlayStation Blog discussing how Horizon Zero Dawn's lead protagonist Aloy will shape up in the franchise's upcoming sequel, Guerrilla Games Community Lead Bo de Vries spoke about the range of outfits that will be available to Aloy throughout Horizon Forbidden West and how the studio is building up versatility within this aspect of the game.
"Horizon Forbidden West will have a range of outfits for Aloy to benefit from; similar to and perhaps familiar from the first game, outfits allow for protection against a variety of dangers that Aloy encounters and can be purchased from Merchants or found in the world," says de Vries.
"A new addition to the system is that outfits in Horizon Forbidden West have skills attached to them, so players can boost their abilities in different ways. Maximizing these skills happens through a new and improved Skill Tree, something we will tell you more about some other time."
In Horizon Zero Dawn, each outfit provides different base values of resistance to unique types of damage which could then be augmented via additional modifications. Armor across the game could be purchased from various merchants and would range from basic armor types which offered little in the way of base stats to fire and frost resistant sets that could be utilized in various situations.
It isn't yet clear how Forbidden West will integrate this system into the game's new and improved skill tree; the wording doesn't make it clear if outfits will unlock whole new skills, or help enhance skills that players have already unlocked. But these changes do sound like they could allow for more versatility in the way that players are able to adapt their build of Aloy as they approach various situations within the game.
Elsewhere in the article Guerrilla delved further into how the development and release of the PlayStation 5 has allowed the studio to add even more detail to Aloy and other character models across Forbidden West. "We can create finer details such as peach fuzz, smooth contouring, or finer texture details and accurate materials expression, to name a few," says Guerrilla Lead Character Artist Bastien Ramisse.
"And not only do visual aspects benefit from the new PlayStation 5 hardware — we have also increased the number of skeletal joints to bring our deformations and facial expressions to a whole new level for more credible and immersive character performance."
Despite this, the studio was quick to reassure fans that its focus on pushing the boundaries of Forbidden West on PS5 won't leave its PlayStation 4 counterpart compromised. “We actually developed and tested the game simultaneously on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5," says Ramisse. "Because it’s very important to us as a studio to ensure PlayStation 4 players get an equally immersive experience."
Horizon: Forbidden West is slated for release on February 18, 2022. For more Horizon news, make sure to check out our comprehensive rundown of (nearly) everything we know about the game so far.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.