You are a hunter. Armed with a bow, arrows, tripwires and your intellect you make your way silently through the landscape, allowing yourself to blend in with the foliage. Your prey is a machine that is dinosaur-like in size and appearance. Welcome to the world of Horizon Zero Dawn, a next gen 3rd Person RPG due on the PS4 in 2016, and the first RPG by Guerrilla Games, developer of the Killzone franchise. Rather than stick to their genre roots and create a shooter RPG similar toDestiny, Guerrilla has decided to explore uncharted territory with their new IP.
You take on the role of Aloy, an intrepid hunter living in a world 1000 years after the collapse of human civilization. In this world, robotic creatures are the dominant species and the energy and machinery they harness is key to the survival of Aloy’s people. Humanity has organized back into tribal structures, whose cultures employ a fusion of primitive and advanced technological practices. How and why the machines have emerged to dominate the natural landscape is a mystery that is to be explored and uncovered piece by piece.
Development Concepts
There are several core concepts to this game that serve the thematic elements of mystery and survival. As you progress through the game, you will encounter relics and ruins of past civilization that hold clues to understanding what has transpired. In-depth exploration of these locations will be key in unlocking the secrets of the past and the answers behind the domination of the machines.
The machines themselves are massive, fast and lethal. Defeating them will not be a simple matter of bringing the right firepower. As Aloy, you will have to make use of gear, intellect and dexterity to bring the metallic beasts to ground. Once downed, you will be able to break down the machines to make use of their vital components and energy. The game’s RPG framework will feature a leveling progression that is somewhere between Assassin’s Creed and theElder Scrollsfranchises.
The world itself is to be dynamic and alive with full day/night cycles, cloud patterns and weather conditions. It’s an open world game whose questlines can be explored in full and without loading screens. There are some very impressive visuals both in the lush environment, forests and mountains and in the more artificial cities and machines. It’s clear we are seeing what the next gen can really do graphically and from the standpoint of what kind of experience it can power.
As seen in gameplay there is a rugged simplicity to the game evident in the HUD and overall interface aesthetic which reinforces the back to nature survival theme. It’s a world in which humans are no longer the apex predator and from that, form takes a backseat to function. Survival here is different than in the soon to releaseFallout 4. This isn’t a world that is holding on, it’s a world that has moved on. No tutorial means you the player are going to be thrust into that explorer mentality from the beginning. How you survive and eventually thrive will be entirely up to you. We’ll all find out if we have what it takes sometime in 2016.
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Horizon Zero Dawn Wiki
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