Forbidden, but not for the West: 10 months after release, Sony removed Horizon Forbidden West from sale in 130 Steam regions

Sony is no stranger to blocking one and a half hundred Steam regions from its new releases on the platform, but with the post-apocalyptic action game Horizon Forbidden West, this happened 10 months after its premiere in the Valve store.

Image source: Steam (Rachel)

As users of the Reddit and ResetEra forums noted, on January 21, without explanation, Horizon Forbidden West disappeared from more than 130 Steam regions, where it had been available since release.

The affected countries included Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Venezuela, Georgia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, the Philippines and others.

List of all affected countries (image source: SteamDB)

It is easy to see that Horizon Forbidden West has disappeared from those regions where it is officially impossible to register a PlayStation account – Sony sets similar regional restrictions for games with a mandatory PSN link.

At the time of publication, there is no requirement to link a PlayStation account in Horizon Forbidden West, however, given the restrictions introduced on January 21, users suspect that this will change in the near future.

The Horizon Zero Dawn remaster requires a PSN account, unlike the original game – you can no longer buy it separately (image source: PlayStation)

Sony itself explains the imposition of PSN accounts on PC users by the desire to maintain order and provide a safe environment in game services, however, linking accounts is already appearing in single releases of the company.

As if this wasn’t enough for fans of the series, the other day there were rumors that NCSoft had canceled the Project H project, under which the Horizon MMO was held. It seems, however, that the game continues to live under a different name – Project Skyline.