One day, someone will write a textbook about how to successfully launch a new intellectual property, and Horizon: Zero Dawn will be the primary case study. From the minute this game was announced and Aloy was introduced to the world, the enthusiasm was off-the-charts – and developer Guerrilla Games met the hype head-on, delivering a compelling post-apocalyptic world that felt both fantastical and familiar.
It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that on its second anniversary the title is celebrating sales of over 10 million units worldwide. That’s up significantly from the previous year, when it had sold a very respectable 7.6 million units.
It’s an absolutely huge number for a first-party exclusive, and while Sony’s first-party franchises have been on the rise this generation, it establishes Horizon as one of PlayStation’s big guns. Who’d have thought that the folks behind the Killzone series would have such success with a single player role-playing game? The really exciting thing is that the inevitable sequel will build on all its success – expect to have your brain blown wide open in a few years.
[source blog.us.playstation.com]
Comments 58
Excellent! They truly deserved this.
Such a stellar game. Definitely in the top 2 or 3 ps4 exclusives in my eyes. Can't wait for the sequel on the ps5!!
HZD is easy in my top ten this gen.
Definitely deserves that success.
Everyone who does not have the game sell your GTA5 copy and buy Horizon Zero Dawn its way better. 😜
Great to hear, such an beautiful game, well deserved.
Quite probably the best new IP this generation. It certainly deserved the sales and proving to be one of the biggest selling Exclusive games for Sony.
One of my favourite PS4 games, no doubt. Taking down bot dinos is so satisfying with that combat.
Awesome. I'd say it's definitely best new IP this gen (and Aloy quickly became a favorite character of mine) and it was needed because there haven't been a ton of new IPs and even fewer good ones. I still consider Killzone 2 one of the great FPS of all-time so I'm not too surprised Guerrilla was able to deliver, at least on the gameplay front. As far the narrative they surprised me with how good Horizon is. Can't wait for the sequel, whenever it hits I'm there day one.
Crazy numbers for a brand new IP. Like the article says, from the game's announcement to its release, the whole campaign was just flawless. Helps that it's so good, obviously.
@Shogunrok Has bought zero copies because he won't play it. Jerk!
What a game. Spent just as much time playing it, as I did taking photos (300+). Absolutely breathtaking. Every encounter felt unpredictable.
Also Horizon Zero Dawn, NieR Automata & Persona 5 all released 5 weeks within each other(UK).
That was the perfect storm & my favourite time gaming on PS4 .
i need this game
@Splat One day... One day.
@ShogunRok PS5 remaster.
That game was the reason I got a PS4 and it still managed to blow my mind. I'm glad it performed this well
The narration with glimpses and hintswhen you read notes and listen to recordings allows you to guess what actually happened before the big reveals. And the amount of detail and thoughts the poured into this game is incredible. It is the only game in which I actively looked for notes and recordings to read them, not for achievements.
A sequel would make me buy a PS5 without hesitation.
Horizon Two soon pls.
EA "Single player games are dead"
Guerrilla Games "Errr Horizon ZD 10 million copies sold"
nice.horizon 2 .for ps5 coming .word up son
@Nakatomi_Uk not only ea.phil Spencer say that single player doesn't sell anymore😱haha.phil 🙊.word up son
Well deserved
This was one of my favorite games this gen. It's crazy how sony are pumping out hit after hit. They've finally nailed down that seal of quality.
This was my Game Of The Year when this released!Absolutely fantastic game that I spent over a hundred hours with!Bring on HZD2!
Cool. Sony did a good job with their first-party games this gen. Now I just need to play most of them. At least God of War and Horizon will both be extremely cheap when I eventually get to them (trying to work on the backlog first!)
This was truly Guerrilla's coming out party. They always had the talent to deliver a huge flagship game but Killzone never had a fair chance. KZ1 was dubbed "the Halo killer" despite only sharing similarities for been a Sci Fi shooter. KZ2 despite the best in franchise was crippled by Sony showing a trailer that was never meant for the public. And KZ3 and Shadowfall got ignored in favour of other shooters.
Horizon Zero Dawn though? Wow, from the moment it was announced both Sony and Guerrilla had such confidence that they went as far as calling it a new "franchise" rather then "new IP" they clearly knew what they had.
Got sidetracked when playing horizon zd because of gow and spidey, can't wait to go back playing it after getting platinum for spidey and god of war
i enjoyed the game greatly... now if they can just make the story a little bit more engaging and improve the melee combat, it would be perfect.
@Splat HZD2 on PS5. Remaster collection PS6. 😀
Can't wait for the inevitable sequel on PS5!
@ShogunRok I agree with Splat you are Jerk.
@airrik I really like to use that image. 😁
Absolutely phenomenal game and has others have said it's the best new IP this generation whilst the combat against the machines is a long way ahead of any other open world game out there
@carlos82 yes, is just like that. Incredible game, and combat never gets old.
@Porco and improve the human ai, as the machines are so amazing but human enemies ai was a bit pants!!
I loved the game despite that though, bar a telltale game, the only platinum trophy I have!!
Nice one Guerilla. Mind blowing combat and a character and storyline I actually care about. Can't wait for HZD 2.
Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War are my favorite games of the generation. Can’t wait for the sequel on PS5.
Lies! Damn lies! Single-player games are dead. EA said so.
you know i still have not got round to buying this game
such a great game well deserved cannot wait to where they take it next.
It was the first Western triple-A game to really wow me as far as the current gen is concerned. I would have enjoyed the game more without the crafting, I didn´t like that part of it. I mainly played it for the story and robo-dinos.
The enemies are so amazing! With even more amazing graphics. I feel like the Thunderjaws and the Scorchers and Fireclaws of the The Frozen Wilds can give Cleric Beast, Darkbeast Paarl, Amygdala, Bloodletting beast and co. a run for their money haha.
My only gripes were the inability to fastforward time by sleeping at a safehouse or something but I heard Guerilla didn't want players fastforwarding time so we can experience the graphics - day time night time - in all its glory.
@Flaming_Kaiser facts
This is a game that did everything right and for some reason I didn't enjoy it and I don't know why. Normally this is exactly the type of game I love but I can't put my finger on why I didn't when I can always understand why I didn't enjoy a game. I didn't hate it, i just can't say I had a lot of fun either.
I don't think I'd get the sequel because I don't know if they changed things I didn't like if I don't know what I didn't like. Never felt this way after playing a game before. It's weird.
@Gumbopudding Your username is hilarious! xD
This game is fantastic, and one thing that really surprised me and still stands out is how fluid and smooth the gameplay is. It's truly excellent, and I'm happy I got the Platinum Trophy.
@playstation1995 phil Spencer say that single player doesn't sell anymore😱haha.
That guy is a complete tool. I hate him almost as much as I hate the xbox....almost.
@Nakatomi_Uk
EA is right btw. It took 2 YEARS for HZD which is a game filled to the brim with contents to hit 10 million WW. While BF 5 a half assed game despite all the controversy surrounding it, topped 7million WW in like 3 - 5 Months?? Dont even mention FIFa........
Id say Single player games are dead not because EA exists but thanks to Some Kind of Gamers out there who are dumb AF. I wont be surprised if Anthem cracked 10 mill +++ in less than a year while EA is sobbing how low sales they had gotten all while GOW was already forgotten....
HZD is a PS4 classic and like other games GTA5 for example it's full of content to get your money's worth from it.
@Evilworm I only own the good EA singleplayer games i think i have 2 games. 😃
@Gumbopudding Did you actually finish the game? I know for me it didn’t quite reel me in until the last half. At first I had a pretty good time taking in the unique setting and fluid mechanics, then I got a little bit bored of it and stopped playing halfway through and went on to other games. I think the story hit a lull in the middle and really picks up at toward the end. The game is so huge that it also has the same issue all these big open world games have where you can get overwhelmed with all the collectibles, side quests, NPC missions, etc. When I eventually went back to it many months later, I focused on progressing the story more and it started to really be interesting. I also got a better understanding of using all the different combat options and didn’t rely so much on just using the spear and basic bow only. As I started doing traps, bombs, tripwires, different bow and arrow combos, and ropecasters and mixing things up, it became a joy to play. Each combat scenario could be varied and there was a good amount of experimentation you can do. So if you didn’t enjoy the first 20 or so hours and quit it, I’d encourage you to go back and try to just push through the main story at least and see if it clicks for you. It did for me.
@Kidfunkadelic83 he's a hippocrite.he says that single player doesn't sell like it used to.but he's buying single player studio.because he knows he was wrong.word up son
@Kidfunkadelic83 he was right. Single player games is INDEED not selling anymore. How many time and effort do you think went into making GOW and only sells 5 mil Worldwide????
A game that lacks contents, reuse assets, no story, copy and paste a few buncha maps like Bf5, blackops 4, battlefront 2, Fifa and it almost effortlessly sold 7-9 million WW rising to the top of the charts........ easy money and easy mockery off those singleplayer games. Look at the charts, Anthem already outsold GOW in japan, in the first week, nice work modern day gamers.
HZD is my fav PS4 game. So glad millions of other games have enjoyed it too.
@Evilworm that fair enough but I'd expect anthem to sell well when it's been reduced in price by 35% 2 days after launch. Guess I will stick to my single player, non selling games then. Only reason I own any console is because of single player, quality titles and when they stop coming I will stop buying games.
@Kidfunkadelic83 lol, yeah, I might buy Anthem when it goes down to £20 and has had all the bugs fixed. Ashamed to say that I never played H:ZD, but am determined to get 'round to it...err...at some stage!
Should guess what HZD2 will be called. I'd say Horizon Gaia Rising.
@Evilworm If you’re talking about God of War selling only 5 million, you’re way off base my friend.
GOW sold 3 million in three days if I’m not mistaken, and is closer to 11million iirc.
@TerrorByte its already off the top spot of the charts. If it had surpassed 10mil, there would definitely be an official report on it but there's none. Up to date im guessing 8-9 mil.
Remember that games like FIFA also come out on every gaming platform, this only came our on 1. If it was on Switch, PC, and Xbox, and sold the same there, it'd have sold 40 million. Also remember that Activision spend about 50 million dollars a year on advertising for CoD. That's significantly more than the entire budget of most games.
They also sell to people who only buy a few games each year, so they can monopolize customers more easily than games with more niche appeal - niche not because they're singleplayer but because of the subject matter; playing as anime schoolkids in Tokyo who fight fantastical creatures while also obsessively managing your timetable, like in P5, is the offputting thing to CoD gamers, not the lack of a battle royal mode.
Let's not kid ourselves, if Horizon had some tacked on multiplayer, it wouldn't have sold noticeably more. And another football game like FIFA could come along with more focus on multiplayer and sell hardly anything cos it's not FIFA. Plus, as a side note, FIFA has tons of singleplayer content.
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