Horizon Forbidden Westhas turned heads since its initial reveal, but it was its extended PlayStation State of Play gameplay presentation that really helped sell the game to a lot of fans. TheHorizon Forbidden Westgameplay demo shown at the State of Play in May of last year gave fans an extended look at what to expect from Aloy’s latest adventure, showing her exploring a tropical setting while stealthily taking out enemy rebels and engaging in intense combat with machines. But now that the game has been out for a week and fans have had the chance to play it to completion, it’s been discovered that certain aspects of this gameplay sequence never actually made it into the final game.

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 inHorizon Forbidden West. In theState 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.

In the end, Aloy is ultimately able to defeat theTremortusk machineand 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 theHorizon Forbidden Westfinal product, but there is likely a good reason for that.

It’s highly likely that thisHorizon Forbidden Westgameplay sequencewas 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 thisHorizon Forbidden Westgameplay footage does a good job of giving fans the highlights of what they can expect.

Basically, the mission was put together to show fans whatHorizon Forbidden West’s gameplaywould 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 inHorizon Forbidden Westitself, elements of it are all over the game. Players do indeed have fights with Tremortusks, and they do get tointeract with Erend, even if they never have to save him from Regalla’s rebels.

Horizno Forbidden Westis out now for PS4 and PS5.