The Horizon Forbidden West Trophy That's Helping To Save The Earth

"Horizon" fans got some bad news back in July when industry insiders revealed that the game would be delayed. Fans have been tiding themselves over with any snippets about the game they can find, from details in the gameplay trailer to examining snapshots from the leak that occurred last month, but now "Forbidden West" is finally almost here. Critics are already raving about its engaging world and innovative combat mechanics, boosting fan expectations even higher. It's promising to be one of the hottest selling games of the year, both on the PS4 and PS5.

One of the major themes in the "Horizon" series is the juxtaposition between nature and advanced technology. It is discovered in "Horizon Zero Dawn" that the reason the tribes of surviving humans live in this post-apocalyptic wilderness is because of a man-made ecological disaster that pushed humanity to the brink of extinction. A reverence for coexisting with nature runs throughout the first game. That's why it's so fitting that Sony will be partnering with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant a tree for every player who achieves a specific trophy in "Horizon: Forbidden West."

Sony announced the new initiative, the "Play and Plant" program, on the PlayStation website. 

"We want to do something to help nature... with you. Just like how Aloy fights to save the Earth in the game, we can do something together to help our planet," Sony explains in the post. "Play 'Horizon Forbidden West' and unlock the 'Reached the Daunt' trophy before March 25th, and we, in partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, will plant a tree across the country to help complete 3 different reforestation projects." 

The three forests benefitting from the program are listed on the page as well. There's the Douglas County Forest in Wisconsin, the Torreya State Park in Florida, and the Sheep Fire Private Lands in Lassen County, California. The latter was the site of the 2020 Sheep Fire, in which nearly 30,000 acres of land and forest were destroyed.

Sony claims that it will plant one tree for each "Reach the Daunt" trophy until all three reforestation projects are completed or the deadline is reached, whichever comes first. This endeavor requires an estimated 288,000 trees. Considering the fact that "Horizon: Zero Dawn" sold 2.6 million copies in less than two weeks, it seems very likely that these forests will get the trees they desperately need before the March 25 deadline.