More than a year after its release, Horizon Forbidden West has helped plant more than 600,000 trees as part of a reforestation project by its developer studio, Guerrilla Games. The sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn was released on February 18, 2022 for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, receiving rave reviews from critics and gamers alike, who praised the design and beauty of its open world.
To help the real-world planet Earth, Guerrilla Games collaborated with organizations around the world as part of the United Nations Playing for the Planet Alliance by creating a reforestation project called Play and Plant. From February 18 through March 25, 2022, Sony would plant a tree for every player who unlocked the “You’ve Reached Intimidation” trophy.
The original goal of the project was to plant a minimum of 288,000 trees, regardless of how many players eventually unlocked the trophy in Horizon Forbidden West. But the “You’ve reached Intimidation” trophy is actually very simple to obtain, as Intimidation is the first large-scale region we reach after completing the tutorial, approximately two hours into the game.
After completing the first two story missions and starting “To the limit”, players will be rewarded with the trophy. During the short time span of the project, more than 600,000 players unlocked the trophy, enabling the restoration of nearly 730 hectares of nature around the world.
Guerrilla Games has posted a video on the official PlayStation YouTube channel describing the process of reclaiming and creating nature in the world of Aloy. As the Horizon Forbidden West vegetation artists explain, by examining real nature in such detail for the virtual world, the team realized that humanity must maintain it no matter what, both for its practical use and its wondrous beauty.
The video states that the Playing for the Planet Alliance had a goal of planting one million trees by 2022. With the help of players from around the world, the Alliance planted a total of 2.5 million trees, which is by no means an insignificant number.
