Horizon Forbidden West, or rather its Burning Shores DLC, unwittingly caused controversy upon its release. Blame it on the developers’ choice, challenged by some players who didn’t hesitate to raise their voices, often with sheer nervousness. The studio eventually responds and explains its choice.
Horizon Forbidden West is one of the hits of 2022 on PS5 and PS4. A PlayStation exclusive that recently had the right to a DLC, Burning Shore, this time only available on PS5. An expansion that pleased on many points, especially with regard to the whole artistic and technical part. Horizon Forbidden West is already great, but its DLC, developed entirely for the PS5, will literally burst your retinas at any moment.
However, Burning Coast caused controversy over its ending. Since then, the game has faced review bombings on Metacritic, and there has been heavy backlash, including harassment and threats.
Horizon Forbidden West DLC is not for everyone (Warning, spoilers)
The reason for this outburst of hatred (because it’s not just dissent when you’re harassing someone) is nothing more than a choice that has to be made at the very end of the DLC. While she spends a small moment with Seyka, a very charismatic newcomer, the player has the option to deepen or not the rel ationship between the two young women, which may or may not end in a kiss. A decision that absolutely did not pass for some players.
So far, Guerrilla has been evasive on the subject, but creative director Ben McCaw recently spoke up during an interview for VGC. For him, the hasty and extreme behavior of some people is absolutely intolerable. McCaw says the studio welcomes feedback and constructive criticism regardless of the topic, and appreciates when players react positively or negatively to certain things in their games. However, he reiterates that he does not take into account the violent reactions and the unnecessary negativity of certain comments, which only serve to point the finger at an issue that seems to still worry the world even in 2023: homosexuality and more generally the sexual orientation or identity.
We are happy if you give us constructive comments on this or that point. And we’re perfectly happy when they say they don’t like this or that about pretty much any aspect of the game that they’ve really given some thought to.[…] But when there is such obvious negativity, I personally find it pretty easy to isolate and ignore it. It’s a mindset I can never accept.
Over VGC
A logical and desired development for and by the studio
And yet Guerrilla thought carefully about his proposal and the description of the character Aloy. Furthermore, his sexual orientation is only a minor element, a natural development of the character and has no particular meaning in the universe of horizon
The decisions at the end of Burning Shore are actually a continuation of a theme that we have in both games, namely that Aloy is not ready for different types of social contact because of her upbringing, but also because of the enormous challenges she faces.
Ben McCaw on VGC
Also Annie Kitain, screenwriter Horizon Forbidden West, claimed that Aloy’s feelings had awakened and were true. She also points out that the final decision rests with the player. In her opinion, it is up to the players to decide whether Aloy is ready to develop this relationship and, more generally, to open up and show genuine feelings towards each other. It remains to be seen how all of this will be handled in the already-planned Horizon 3, although the developers are yet to be clear on what’s next.
