The latest update from Guerrilla Games added a touching tribute to the late actor Lance Reddick to the Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores add-on recently. With the new addition, players can remember the actor who passed away over a year ago through Sylense, who has been a key character since the release of the first Horizon in 2017 and the 2022 sequel Forbidden West.
Honoring Lance Reddick: A Tribute in Burning Shores DLC
The notes for the approximately 1GB update (version 1.26), which includes the tribute, primarily focused on fixes and improvements. However, we quickly noticed the addition of a memorial. If you want to see it, just do this:
Assuming you already have the Burning Shores DLC installed, enter the island where the entire DLC begins (the place where Aloy first meets Seyka). Next, walk to the flower-filled clearing you’ll find laid out high above the local beach, and once you get there, the process is simple. Blue lights will begin to emanate from the floor with no more activity as you approach the memorial, which will coalesce above ground into a holographic name of the actor to whom the developers paid tribute when they announced his death.
The Life and Career of Lance Reddick: A Gamer’s Tribute
Just as a point of reference, we learned about Reddick’s death in March last year, when the actor died suddenly at the age of 60. The originally trained musician leaves behind his wife Stephanie, daughter Nicole, and son Christopher. Known best for his role as Cedric Daniels on The Wire, the American actor also shone as Commander Zavala from the Destiny series and as Sylens from our beloved Horizon series. However, he was also a devoted gamer himself, as the last moments of his life show – the day before he died, it was the second Destiny that he devoted over 2,800 hours to, along with the first, and he was reportedly only one mission short of completing Lightfall.
Lance Reddick, who just portrayed Commander Zavala, already had a rich cast within video games that goes far beyond Destiny. He’s appeared in older titles like 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand, Payday 2, Quantum Break, and John Wick Hex, among others, but most notably for us, the Horizon series. Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West.
Reddick’s Lasting Legacy in Horizon Forbidden West
As a Zavala character, however, he had the most iconic status. He was in charge of all Guardian military operations for the entire nine years of Destiny’s existence, leading them in campaigns such as the Taken War, the Red War, and the various expansions. Therefore, since the first rumors of the actor’s death surfaced, there has been a loud reaction, especially from the Destiny community. Players have paid tribute to the Commander’s character by standing at attention with him or spending time kneeling with him to honor his memory.
How Guerrilla Games Pays Homage to Lance Reddick
In addition to the studios themselves, such as Guerrilla Games (Killzone or Horizon series), some actors or faces of the video game profession also brought their own statements. Examples include Ashly Burch (the actress Alloy), Shawn Ashmore (who plays the hero of Quantum Break), and voice actor Nolan North (Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series) Furthermore, there were of course also tributes from the developers of Querilla Games who worked with Lance on the excellent games Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West which we at Weplaygames.net consider to be gems of the gaming industry.
With this article, we wanted to go back in time and remember this great actor with an absolutely fantastic voice who really hit us right in the gamer’s heart, especially through our beloved Horizon series around which I recently did several reviews, including the DLC for the second part of Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores where the monument to Lance Reddick is located. And most importantly to pay our own tribute to this man who will be sorely missed in the video game industry.