Horizon Forbidden West’s Skill Tree Will Have Six Different Playstyles

With Horizon Forbidden West’s launch now less than two months away, Sony and Guerrilla Games have really sped up the pace at which they’re doling out new details on the game. With the upcoming open world action RPG being the cover story for the latest Game Informer issue, even more details on it have emerged, several of which have been summarized and compiled over on Reddit.

One of the things that stands out here is the fact the the skill tree is seemingly going to be much more expansive and offer significantly more options than Zero Dawn’s skill tree, which is something that Guerrilla Games has spoken about previously as well.

In Forbidden West, the skill tree will have six different playstyles- Warrior, which will focus on melee; Infiltrator, which will focus on stealth; Hunter, which will focus on ranged attacks; Machine Master, which will focus on hacking; Survivor, which will focus on health and resources; and Trapper, which will focus on traps. Each of these categories will have 20-30 unlockable skills, and each tree will also have its own unique Valor Surge.

Meanwhile, Horizon Forbidden West will encourage multiple playstyles in other ways as well- for instance, with upgrades to gear, which will be done at workbenches. Each weapon will have multiple levels of upgrades, and as you go through them, that weapons’ stats will increase, while also improving your ammo capacity, or perhaps unlocking a new ammo type. Upgrading the Common Bow, for instance, will unlock the new Acid Arrows. Meanwhile, outfits can also be upgraded anywhere between 3-5 times, with each upgrade bringing stat improvements and improved effectiveness of whatever perk that outfit comes with.

Finally, Game Informer has also released five new screenshots, which you can check out below. Mostly, they’re focused on Daunt, a canyon at the eastern edge of Sundom, which is Carja territory. A new machine called the Burrower is shown as well- it can burrow itself underground and pop back out to surprise you. Game director Mathijs de Jonge says about the Burrower, “We wanted to add even more character and locomotion to the machines in Horizon Forbidden West, so the Burrowers are very similar to otters or weasels: flexible, quick, and pretty ferocious.”

Horizon Forbidden West is due out on February 18 for PS5 and PS4.