PlayStation Has Added a Roguelike Mode to All Its Major Games Except the Perfect One
PlayStation has released some of the biggest hits of this past generation, but many of these games are years old, and players have moved on. Yet, the studio has found a way to extend their lives and bring players back. Rather than expanding the experience with narrative DLC, Sony has opted to add new game modes, specifically a roguelike mode, to many of its greatest hits. God of War Ragnarok received its Valhalla expansion, while The Last of Us Part II Remastered introduced No Return. We are even seeing Ghost of Yotei receiving Most Wanted, a roguelike take on the samurai favorite.
This shows how Sony is reinventing the beloved games and their combat into an entirely different style of gameplay. However, there is one PlayStation game that seems particularly well suited to this treatment: Horizon Forbidden West. Guerrilla’s open-world adventure already combines machine hunting, weapon crafting, resource gathering, and extensive character progression. These translate naturally into a roguelike-inspired mode built around randomized encounters and limited resources. A roguelike mode could offer an experience based on hunting machines, collecting components, and crafting ammunition before facing a difficult final encounter. Sadly, due to Horizon Forbidden West’s age, this may be out of the question.
PlayStation Has Found a Winning Formula With Roguelike Modes
God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla was an interesting departure from the main game’s structure. Released as a free expansion in December 2023, it sends Kratos into a series of replayable trials inspired by the roguelite genre. Santa Monica Studio designed the experience around repeated runs, allowing players to improve their combat skills while progressing through a separate narrative. Each attempt gave players more and more to enjoy as they tried to reach the end.
What makes Valhalla work is how naturally it adapts God of War Ragnarok’s combat. Kratos already has a versatile arsenal, several weapon types, runic attacks, and different build options. With this roguelike addition, players didn’t have to mess with their builds in the story and could experiment as freely as they wished. That said, it did allow players to continue Kratos’ journey, blending combat and story perfectly.
The Last of Us Part II Remastered took a different approach with No Return. Naughty Dog created randomized runs featuring different encounters, objectives, gameplay modifiers, and playable characters. Players can face waves of enemies, defend against infected, capture supplies, or survive timed attacks. Weapons and upgrades reset between runs, while character unlocks and other rewards provide longer-term progression. This shows perfectly how a narrative-driven game can shift gears and still be a hit.
Horizon Forbidden West Would Be Perfect
There is no game I’d love to see get a roguelike mode more than Horizon Forbidden West. Guerrilla built an ecosystem of mechanical creatures with different components, elemental weaknesses, and combat behaviors. Players can target specific parts, remove weapons, exploit weaknesses, and use different ammunition types to defeat their enemies. A new mode could turn those mechanics into a series of escalating hunts, requiring players to decide which resources to preserve and which upgrades to prioritize. This would give its roguelike mode more urgency and planning.
Players would begin a run with a limited supply of arrows, traps, and healing resources. Your first objective might involve hunting smaller machines to collect components, followed by a more difficult encounter against a machine with valuable crafting materials. You could then return to a temporary workbench, use the collected parts to craft ammunition, and select a modifier that changes the next battle. The result would retain Horizon Forbidden West’s familiar combat while creating a different rhythm from its open-world campaign.
The crafting system would make a roguelike Horizon Forbidden West stand out from Sony’s other post-launch updates. Instead of carrying a fully upgraded arsenal into every encounter, players could gradually assemble their equipment during a run. Rare machine components might unlock stronger ammunition, while optional challenges could reward players with special modifications or additional resources. The mode would not need to replicate every aspect of the main game but provide enough variety to make each hunt feel like a tactical decision rather than another routine encounter.
The Biggest Problem Is Horizon’s Age & the Series Misdirection
The biggest problem is Horizon Forbidden West’s age. It is now four years old, and both God of War Ragnarok: Valhalla and The Last of Us Part II Remastered were released a year after the base game release. Sony and Guerrilla showed how important it is to follow up a game’s launch with no content quickly, as evident by these updates and the game’s own Burning Shores expansion. Guerrilla has since moved its franchise forward through other projects, making a substantial new roguelike mode for Forbidden West seemingly out of the question.
There is also the question of how a new mode would fit into the existing game. Valhalla was designed around a focused combat loop, while No Return uses a selection of familiar locations and encounters to create randomized runs. Forbidden West’s open world is much larger, and its progression systems are closely connected to exploration, quests, crafting, and equipment upgrades. Guerrilla would need to determine which systems to preserve, which to simplify, and how to make the mode feel distinct from simply replaying the campaign.
Aside from these issues, the series has already taken a different direction. Horizon has two upcoming games in the MMO Horizon Steel Frontiers and Horizon Hunter’s Gathering, both of which have received a lot of backlash for how they are departing from what fans love about the series. Guerilla has already confirmed Hunter’s Gathering is getting a reboot mid-development, showing how rocky the foundation of the series is. To imagine Horizon Forbidden West getting any update would be crazy, let alone a complete reimagining of its gameplay. Still, if there was a series Sony should revive with randomized runs and incremental upgrades, it is absolutely Horizon.