It all depends on if it’s actually a massive step forward or if it just feels like an iterative sequel. There’s a lot of revisionist history now about how “mid” Horizon has always been, but people weren’t saying that when Zero Dawn came out-people were pretty much universally into it. The major hit against it at the time was that it came out too close to Breath of the Wild.
The problem with Forbidden West is that it took five years and it was just an iterative sequel. Iterative sequels can be fine, or even great, but when five years pass and a new generation of consoles comes out, people expect a big jump, and they didn’t get it. Stuff that worked in 2017 felt tired by 2022.
3 can’t just be Forbidden West with slightly better graphics. It needs to actually be a meaningful leap.