PS5 ad gives release window for Horizon: Forbidden West, Gran Turismo 7, more

By Giovanni Colantonio November 9, 2020

A new PlayStation 5 ad confirms the current release window for Sony’s upcoming slate of exclusive games. The video details when highly anticipated games like Horizon: Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7 are coming in 2021.

The one-minute video features a reel of game footage, which includes both launch games and subsequent titles. Eagle-eyed viewers will notice some fine-print part way through the video: “Gran Turismo 7, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Returnal: Anticipated first half of 2021. Horizon: Forbidden West: Anticipated second half of 2021.”

While still somewhat vague, those time frames do bring Sony’s 2021 plans more into focus. Sony previously said that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart would release in the console’s “launch window,” making it one of the console’s biggest exclusives following launch day. Details on Gran Turismo 7 have been comparatively sparse, though the release window lines up with one that appeared on a Canadian advertisement last week.

Returnal’s appearance is intriguing here, as Sony has barely shown the game since its initial reveal in June. The ad puts it front and center, positioning the shooter as a bigger PlayStation 5 release than anticipated.

With Horizon: Forbidden West slated for the second half of 2021, there’s a good chance it could be Sony’s big holiday game next year.

The use of “anticipated” in the fine print does put a major asterisk on all these release dates. Developers are still dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced unexpected game delays throughout 2020. With the health crisis still ongoing, Sony’s release schedule could easily change as the situation develops.

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Giovanni Colantonio

Section Editor, Gaming

Giovanni is a writer and video producer focusing on happenings in the video game industry. He has contributed stories to…

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In a post on the game's website, Polyphony Digital president Kazunori Yamauchi explained that what should have been a simple update rollout led to its latest PlayStation exclusive racing title being unavailable for a day. "Immediately before the release of the 1.07 update," reads the post, "we discovered an issue where the game would not start properly in some cases on product versions for the PS4 and PS5." The developer went on to explain that this error could have somehow impacted users' save data, leading to the game's outage.