Horizon Forbidden West devs explain why they didn't show one specific character

Horizon Forbidden West's narrative director has revealed why the game never actually shows a certain character. Be warned: there are spoilers for Horizon Forbidden West immediately following this lovely picture of Aloy!

Horizon Forbidden West follow orbs trail sylens hades — (Image credit: Sony)

Speaking to Kotaku, Horizon Forbidden West narrative director Ben McCaw revealed why Guerrilla opted not to show reincarnated CEO Ted Faro. McCaw stated that both himself and game director Mathijs de Jonge felt that they shouldn't show Faro for two reasons: firstly, "it's not a horror game," as McCaw puts it, and secondly, whatever the player imagines is probably scarier than what the game could show.

"It’s what’s lurking in the shadows that’s way, way scarier—the image that your mind conjures up—than the cheesy Hollywood rubber suit that you show," McCaw said of the decision not to show Faro in all his, erm, glory. "We didn’t want to do that. We wanted it to be in the player’s mind."

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As things stand, the player is merely left to their own devices to imagine what the once-leader of Zero Dawn now looks like. When side character Ceo encounters what's left of Faro, all we hear is a bone-chilling roar, followed by Ceo scampering away with his tail between his legs.

Perhaps we'll never get to see what Faro actually looks like, over a thousand years after the collapse of civilization. For what it's worth though, McCaw describes what's left of the villain as a "human cancer, a massive cancerous growth," adding that he personally imagines the character as a "sort of a cancer on humanity."