Game

Horizon Forbidden West

2022

Insufficient evidence

We did not find enough credible, independent evidence to publish a numeric cash-grab score. Unrated is more honest than a guess.

What counts as a cash grab?

Commercial extraction prioritized over meaningful consumer or creative value. Profit, popularity, adaptations, sequels, remakes, high budgets, and normal marketing do not count by themselves.

Why?

Horizon Forbidden West (2022) does not show credible evidence of being a cash grab. Reporting and developer posts document a multi‑year, large team production with a reported ~$212M development scale and numerous technical/artistic investments. Independent reviews praised the visuals, combat and new mechanics while noting familiar sequel structure and some launch performance issues that were patched. The game offered a paid expansion, Burning Shores, at a standard expansion price and a later Complete Edition, but I found no reliable reporting of predatory in‑game monetization or rushed, deceptive release practices.

No credible reporting or reviewer evidence of predatory microtransactions or aggressive live‑service monetization.
Documented large production scale and budget, with developer deep dives showing substantial craft work.
Paid expansion Burning Shores was priced at industry‑normal $19.99 and later Complete Edition pricing matched common re‑release practice.

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Score factors

Direction	Factor	Evidence	Impact
Against	Large budget and team	Public reporting and Sony/press documents indicate multi‑year development that peaked at hundreds of staff and a reported development cost around US$212 million.[3][2]	-18
Against	Significant new content	Developer articles and critical reviews document new mechanics, new large setpieces such as the Las Vegas ruins, underwater exploration, and numerous new machines and quests.[1][4]	-17
Against	Use of platform features and technical work	Developer interviews describe explicit PS5‑specific work on haptics, fast loading, and graphical fidelity, indicating technical investment rather than minimal reuse.[5][1]	-8

Confidence: Low · No source-backed commercial-extraction signal was found. · Researched 2026-07-23

Sources reviewed

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