The wait is over. Horizon Forbidden West has landed, and yes, it is exactly as anticipated. Guerrilla Games didn’t just bring back the dino-bots; they crammed the world with even more absurd mechanical fauna. We are talking about everything from tiny, fluttering drone-birds to colossal, tank-like Mecha-saurians that treat human players like minor inconveniences. It looks fantastic. It plays even better. But here is the question that actually matters. Do these robotic animals exist in our real world right now? And why does a 1990s electronic pet seem more relevant to the technology than you might think?
The gap between fiction and engineering
Let’s be clear. You cannot go to your local pet store and buy a robotic tiger that walks on four legs and hunts for food. Not yet. The technology required to mimic the organic fluidity of a living beast is still decades away from being consumer-ready. What we do have are highly specialized robots designed for specific tasks. They are not cute. They are not pet-worthy. They are industrial, military, or scientific tools.
But the spirit of Horizon is not just about the visuals. It is about the concept of autonomous, mechanical life forms. Guerrilla Games took the idea of “wildlife” and replaced biology with engineering. In the game, the machines are autonomous. They have energy cores, AI-driven behaviors, and even social hierarchies. In reality, we are nowhere near creating a self-sustaining ecosystem of machines.
Where real robotic animals actually live
So, where are they? If you strip away the fantasy element, robotic animals are everywhere, but they are usually hiding in plain sight. They are not wandering the plains of California (the setting of Forbidden West ). They are in labs, in warehouses, and in deep-sea research vessels.
Consider Boston Dynamics. Their Spot robot is quadrupedal. It looks a bit like a mechanical dog. It can climb stairs. It can open doors. It can carry cargo. But it does not hunt. It does not have a personality. It is a tool. It lacks the “life” that makes the machines in Horizon feel like part of a natural ecosystem.
Then there is the Mini Cheetah. Also from Boston Dynamics, this small robot can run faster than a human sprinter. It is agile. It is impressive. But again, it is remote-controlled or programmed for a single task. It does not roam. It does not adapt to a new environment without human input.
In the biological research field, scientists use robotic animals to study real wildlife without disturbing them. There are robotic drones that look like birds. There are robotic fish. These are not toys. They are data-collection devices. They allow researchers to get close to animals without scaring them away. The RoboBee, for example, is a tiny micro-air vehicle. It is not a pet. It is a surveillance tool. It is clumsy. It is expensive. But it is real.
The Tamagotchi connection: Why does it matter?
Here is where things get interesting. Why bring up the Tamagotchi? The plastic egg-shaped electronic pet from the 90s was simple. You fed it
