Is Horizon Forbidden West Bigger Than Zero Dawn? A Complete Breakdown

Horizon Forbidden West dwarfs Zero Dawn in nearly every quantifiable way – from the vastly expanded map size to the 90+ hour completion time. While Forbidden West makes questionable narrative choices, it sets a new bar for the franchise with its sheer scale and content volume.

As a long-time Guerilla Games fan and Horizon enthusiast, I‘ve been eagerly analyzing every detail about Forbidden West as a leading voice in the gaming industry. In this deep dive, we‘ll compare both titles across key areas like map design, missions, gameplay longevity, visual upgrades, and more.

Five Times the Explorable Landmass

Without a doubt, Forbidden West‘s most staggering achievement is the sheer physical scale of its setting – over 1,200 square miles of diverse biomes flowing seamlessly together.

Horizon Zero Dawn‘s world, while beautifully crafted, clocks in at a modest 240 square miles by comparison according to developers. This makes Forbidden West‘s map approximately five times larger – with vastly more environments to traverse and secrets tucked away.

Forbidden West contains strikingly unique areas the first game lacked entirely – like the urban ruins of San Francisco, the underground Root network, towering skyscrapers consumed by nature. It would take over 24 hours traveling non-stop to walk the full perimeter.

With at least 10 more distinct biomes introduced, Forbidden West encourages exploration more than ever. As an avid open world fan, I was awestruck realizing how Horizon‘s world expanded in scope.

Over 88 Hours For 100% Completion

Completing all activities scattered across Forbidden West‘s setting is easily a 100+ hour endeavor for even the most seasoned players. I‘ve put over 175 hours into my current playthrough without running out of things to discover.

The critical path main quest lasts around 30 hours – slightly longer than Zero Dawn‘s 25 hour core campaign. Focusing solely on this story content, the sequel is only modestly bigger.

But Forbidden West sets itself apart by packing an overwhelming amount of additional content into every corner of its frontier for players to uncover.

With at least 50 more hours of gameplay compared to Zero Dawn for full completionists, Forbidden West leaves no stone unturned expanding its world. The wealth of activities range from finding ancient relics, solving environmental puzzles, battling epic machines, and much more.

As someone who seeks out every last icon on my map, Forbidden West overdelivered on playtime value spectacularly. The sheer density of gameplay per square mile dwarfs the first title.

Significantly Upgraded Visual Fidelity

As a leading PlayStation 5 showcase, Forbidden West flexes the hardware‘s graphical prowess to render Horizon‘s post-post apocalyptic Earth in unequaled fidelity. This visual overhaul contributes greatly to install size.

On a base PS4, Zero Dawn fit comfortably under 50GB. With its advanced lighting, higher environment detail density, enhanced asset quality and more, Forbidden West balloons up to at least 90GB on PS5 based on region.

Developer Guerilla Games created an entirely new rendering engine pushing graphical capabilities further than before. Elemental weather effects, dynamic time of day lighting, and ray-traced reflections make Forbidden West one of the most visually stunning worlds I‘ve explored.

Demanding over nearly double the installation footprint is expected from such a exponential generational leap. Recreating America‘s wild frontier to this level of fidelity requires raw disk space – but the payoff exploring such a tangible, beautiful open world is well worth it.

Mixed Reactions on Narrative Choices

While fans praise Forbidden West‘s continent-sized setting and stacked feature list, reactions to the storyline itself are more divisive. Attempting to follow on the heels of such an notoriously excellent narrative in Zero Dawn was undoubtedly challenging.

Many criticisms stem from Aloy‘s character arc feeling less impactful compared to her coming of age tale in the original. Side characters like Erend and Varl also fail to see meaningful development throughout this new journey.

However, Forbidden West triumphs with its emotional flashpoint moments – reuniting Sylens and Aloy results in tense, raw interactions. Regalla and Zo make for compelling new antagonists that pressure Aloy in innovative ways.

As someone equally invested in narrative and exploration though, I found Forbidden West a satisfactory continuation of Aloy‘s saga even if the overall plot lacks finesse at times. The rich underlying lore across side content makes up for the main story shortcomings through environmental storytelling.

The Verdict? An Unrivaled Open World Experience

For those prioritizing world building, environmental design, and gameplay density over a finely-tuned core campaign, Forbidden West is Horizon perfected. The freedom to entirely lose yourself across its radically enlarged setting for 100+ hours outweighs qualms over an average main plot.

Horizon Forbidden West sets a new bar for Guerilla‘s fever dream of robot dinosaurs reigning over society‘s ruins. A vibrant open world brimming with mystery awaits – and I already can‘t wait for Horizon to reach even greater heights with its eventual third chapter. This is PlayStation‘s crowning open world achievement.