Available on November 7, Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds will cost $20, but PlayStation Plus subscribers can pre-order the game now for $15. Pre-orders of the expansion also come with a “Banuk Aloy” PlayStation Network avatar. The Frozen Wilds isn’t a “standalone” expansion like we’ve seen from Bethesda’s Wolfenstein and Dishonored series — without the original Horizon Zero Dawn game, you won’t be able to play it.
The Frozen Wilds adds a new area to the already enormous open world of Horizon Zero Dawn, and as the name would suggest, it’s covered in snow and ice. The region is deadly and rarely visited by foreigners, as we learned in the announcement trailer from E3.
“Few dare trespass here. Those that do seek the glory of the hunt,” a villager says in the trailer. “To challenge themselves in a land like no other. But they never find glory: only death.”
Aloy’s mission takes her to a mountain located in the Frozen Wilds, which is guarded by an enormous beast. The trailer shows a pile of snow begin to crackle with electricity as the creature lets out a mighty roar. Naturally, we don’t actually get to see what the beast looks like.
The main Horizon Zero Dawn game featured plenty of enormous robotic dinosaurs, including the powerful “Thunderjaw,” which Aloy regularly encountered as she approached the end of the story. Taking several minutes to defeat, the robots forced players to make full use of their combat skills.
The Frozen Wilds will be going up against some stiff competition when it launches in November. Call of Duty: WWII comes out just days earlier, and on November 7, Microsoft will be releasing Crackdown 3 alongside its upgraded Xbox One X console.
Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds will be available exclusively for PlayStation 4.