As pointed out by Reddit user jmcc84, the mission where Aloy has to save Erend that was shown during the State of Play doesn’t actually happen in Horizon Forbidden West. In the State of Play footage, players see that Erend has been captured by some of Regalla’s rebels, and Aloy sets out to save him. Things get out of hand when it’s revealed that the rebels have a Tremortusk (basically a mechanical elephant) at their disposal, and then an epic fight between Aloy and the machine ensues.

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In the end, Aloy is ultimately able to defeat the Tremortusk machine and rescue Erend from his captors. Erend then shows Aloy some Focus data that appears to give her new objectives, but a storm sneaks up on them, and the footage ends on a somewhat foreboding note. This mission does not exist in the Horizon Forbidden West final product, but there is likely a good reason for that.

It’s highly likely that this Horizon Forbidden West gameplay sequence was never intended to be in the final game, but was rather put together for the express purpose of showing as many of its different gameplay features as possible. After all, the point of a PlayStation State of Play event is to sell people on the game, and this Horizon Forbidden West gameplay footage does a good job of giving fans the highlights of what they can expect.

Basically, the mission was put together to show fans what Horizon Forbidden West’s gameplay would entail in the most exciting manner possible. It’s not an uncommon practice for game developers to put together things like this for industry events like PlayStation State of Play presentations, as sometimes showing a legitimate prolonged gameplay sequence could include busywork that may be fine when one is actually playing the game, but might not be a great way to sell it to customers.

And while this specific mission does not exist in Horizon Forbidden West itself, elements of it are all over the game. Players do indeed have fights with Tremortusks, and they do get to interact with Erend, even if they never have to save him from Regalla’s rebels.

Horizno Forbidden West is out now for PS4 and PS5.

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Source: Reddit