The Horizon curse appears to show no sign of stopping, as the Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered release date continues the series' tradition of clashing with massive franchise releases.
Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered was officially unveiled during last night's PlayStation State of Play. Its existence wasn't a huge surprised - the project leaked via the ESRB and had already been rumored as far back as 2022. What did come as a surprise, however, was its October 31 - the same day as Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
It didn't take fans long to note that that's just another entry in what's quickly becoming known as the 'Horizon Curse'. All three of the mainline releases (i.e. not VR spin-off Call of the Mountain or Lego mash-up Horizon Adventures) have released extremely close to a major RPG, often one from a series far more established than Aloy's.
In 2017, the original Horizon Zero Dawn released just a week before The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which went on to sweep GOTY discussions. In 2022, Horizon Forbidden West doubled-down, releasing a week before Elden Ring, which was similarly dominant when it came to end of the year accolades. Now, with the remaster releasing on the exact same day as Dragon Age, it seems that pattern has been wholly baked-in - which does at least seem to be good news for BioWare.
None of this has had too damaging an effect on Aloy - the Horizon franchise has shipped more than 32 million sales, with "millions more" having played the game via services like PlayStation Plus. With spin-offs, remasters, and sequels all under their belt, the Horizon Curse isn't too likely to upset developer Guerilla, but perhaps it'll look for a slightly more empty release window for whatever its next game is.
Horizon Zero Dawn studio director reveals their last-minute panic before original E3 reveal.
