In aid of Horizon Forbidden West’s underlying ecological theme, Sony has launched a new tree-planting initiative that lets you contribute just by playing Aloy’s next adventure.
Through the Play and Plant project, Sony has promised to plant a tree in one of three reforestation areas for every player that unlocks the Reached the Daunt trophy in Horizon Forbidden West before March 25.
It’s a pretty easy trophy to unlock, too, requiring you only to complete the game’s tutorial area. That should take just a few hours.
All three reforestation projects are located in the US - Douglas County Forest, Sheep Fire Private Lands, and Torreya State Park - which Sony reckons will require 288,000 trees to completely reforest. It’ll be planting the trees in collaboration with the Arbor Day Foundation.
Across the pond in the UK, Sony has partnered with wildlife center and educational tourist attraction The Eden Project to create a 12-acre wildflower habitat.
It will also be lighting up the Eden Project’s bubble-like domes, which not only look like they’ve been stripped straight from Horizon’s vision of the future, but bear a striking resemblance to Aloy’s hex-gridded glider from Forbidden West.
Horizon Forbidden West releases February 18. Before you get your hands on the game, check out our thoughts on it, and why we think it’s excellent, in our Horizon Forbidden West review.
Analysis: a real reward
As PR stunts go, this actually looks to do some good. Besides allowing Sony to present itself as a serious defender against climate change, the Play and Plant project also shows the publisher using PlayStation trophies in a new way. While the achievements are usually only integrated into games as collectibles for you to show off to your PSN friends, the Reached the Daunt trophy in Horizon Forbidden West will have a real-world impact.
It’s a minor impact, but one that nevertheless shows how Sony can implement future rewards systems using PS5 trophies.
This isn’t the first time PlayStation trophies have bled into the material world. Back in 2020, Sony promised a “real-life PlayStation Platinum Trophy” to one lucky winner as part of its Player Celebration, complete with an engraving of their name. Entrants had to turn up to the PlayStation website at a specific time and answer some questions to be entered into a random draw. As far as we can tell, Sony never did announce who won.
Whether you fancy digging into Guerrilla Game’s new release to plant a tree or just see what Aloy’s up to, you can pre-order Horizon Forbidden West below.
