A deeper look at new PS4 exclusive, Horizon: Zero Dawn

Horizon: Zero Dawn was announced at Sony’s E3 2015 conference and it blew people away.

Guerrilla Games, the studio famously known for the Killzone franchise, is departing Killzone and starting a new adventure. As one of the few new IPs announced at the conference, we've decided to take a deeper look at the PlayStation 4 exclusive.

You will play as Aloy, a redheaded female protagonist living in a “post- apocalyptic” setting. 1,000 years after the apocalypse, mankind is still trying to survive, bringing humans back to their original caveman state. Players will explore a world that is taken back by nature, lush landscapes of foliage and massive cities overrun by animals and plants. The most interesting thing about Horizon is the enemies — huge robot-like dinosaurs that will roam the land. Aloy is a hunter and with various weapons at her disposal, you will have to learn how to take out the dinos.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com, art director Jan-Bart van Beek revealed that there is "a lot of interplay between the different weapons and ammo types, and there is a sort of creative aspect there where you need to find the right way to use weapons for particular robos. And that counts for a lot of the game. We don't tutorialize the game, we don't go and tell you how to hunt these robos or how they interact. You really have to go out there and explore these things by trial and error."

"And it's the same case for learning about how the robos interact between themselves; who's protecting who and how they are all interconnected. You're always a little bit like David Attenborough where he's sitting in the bushes and studying these creatures trying to learn their behavior, seeing how you can exploit that behaviour from them."

Guerrilla is taking a similar approach to Horizon's storytelling as well.

"You won't find us in any interviews explaining what the robos are, why they are there or how they came to be," van Beek continued. "This is something for the player to find out themselves. By exploring the world, going to the ruins and learning as much as possible about our game, everything will reveal itself."

Guerrilla Games also gained some useful assets to the team with developers from both Bethesda (Skyrim) and CD Projekt RED (The Witcher 3). This will come in handy as both these developers worked on games with huge, open worlds to explore and a deep narrative to go alongside with it.

Its undeniable that this game is graphically impressive. Many sources who saw the behind-close-door demo stated that the game looks as beautiful as the Sony E3 demo. When asked about the graphics, van Beek said, “It is actually still the same engine but then [there is] an enormous leap from Shadow Fall to this. The Shadow Fall engine isn’t an open-world streaming world engine so for the last two years a lot of technological effort has gone into actually being able to make it work like this.” Guerrilla Games confirmed that Horizon Zero Dawn will run at 1080p/30fps and is being developed on a modified version of the Killzone: Shadow Fall engine.

With the departure of the beloved Killzone franchise it brings new promise to Guerrilla Games studios and an awesome first party game for the Playstation 4.

Horizon Zero Dawn is set to release exclusively on the PS4 sometime in 2016.