Update: sony has now U-turned and will offer free upgrades from PlayStation 4 copies of Horizon Forbidden West to the PlayStation 5 version. Head here for more details.
The original post follows.
Sony have updated the support page for Horizon Forbidden West. If you wish to upgrade from PS4 to PS5 at some point you will have to make sure you chose the correct edition of the game.
Only the Digital Deluxe, Collector’s, and Regalla Editions of the game will include a free PS4 to PS5 upgrade path.The Standard and Special editions will not have the upgrade and there is no way to upgrade from Standard to Digital Deluxe.
Here is the full text from the support page:
Can I upgrade my PS4 version to the PS5 version?
If you want to have access to both the PS4 and PS5 versions of Horizon Forbidden West, please purchase the Digital Deluxe, Collector’s, or Regalla Editions. Dual entitlement does not apply to the Standard and Special Editions.
Can I upgrade my Standard Edition to the Digital Deluxe edition of Horizon Forbidden West?
There are no plans for an update offer from standard to digital deluxe edition at this time.
I have bought the Digital Deluxe, Collector’s, or Regalla Edition; can I play this on both PS4 consoles and PS5 consoles?
Yes, as an owner of the Digital Deluxe, Collector’s, or Regalla Edition, you will receive a digital entitlement for both PS4 and PS5 versions. Your saved data will be transferable from your PS4 console to your PS5 console.
The support page also reveals the game will include ‘Strike’. This is a board game that can be played within the Horizon world, Aloy will be able to challenge NPC’s to batches. It also reveals that The Regalla Edition will include “an epic Tremortusk statue”, but it won’t include the game on disk, neither will the Collectors Edition.
As predicted, Horizon Forbidden West is going to miss it’s 2021 release date and will now be out on February 18th 2022. The news was announced during the Gamescom Opening Night Live presentation. Last month Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier and Venture Beat’s Jeff Grubb (who was speaking on the GrubbSnax news program for Giant Bomb) leaked that the game was going to be delayed.
The sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn had been expected for release in late 2021, with Sony executives repeatedly stating that the Horizon Forbidden West was on target for a launch this year, but also consistently hedging their bets by not giving a firm release date and also leaving the door open to a possible delay. Most recently, PlayStation Studio boss Hermen Hulst said “For Horizon, we think we are on track to release this holiday season. But that isn’t quite certain yet, and we’re working as hard as we can to confirm that to you as soon as we can.”
That statement came shortly after the May State of Play and sweeping gameplay reveal, showcasing the game on PlayStation 5 – it will also be coming to PlayStation 4 as a cross-gen exclusive – and new gameplay for swimming, traversal, combat and more.
Source: PlayStation via Twitter
Stefan L
It’s weird how many different permutations of this Sony has now tried. Miles Morales is a free upgrade and you pay to get Spider-Man remastered, you can pay to upgrade Ghost of Tsushima or Death Stranding to their director’s cut versions, but now Horizon FW is following NBA 2K and FIFA 22 in extracting a pound of cross-gen flesh up front.
Hopefully they walk it back so that you can just pay the difference and get the Digital Deluxe Edition as an upgrade. A £20 price bump isn’t nice, but for a lot of people, being able to kick that can down the road a bit is going to help.