As October comes to a close and November creeps closer, we're nearing the release of Guerrilla Game's first and only downloadable content (DLC) for Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Frozen Wilds. Speaking with the Official PlayStation Magazine UK, Horizon: Zero Dawn lead writer Ben McCaw spoke about the new zone and what's in store for Aloy.
What we’re seeing in the DLC is a border zone between the Carja and the Banuk, it’s a disputed territory, it’s a very dangerous territory. It’s also primarily inhabited by the Banuk, so there’s been a lot of back and forth and warfare between the Carja and the Banuk, who have kind of settled into this area.
With writing The Frozen Wilds we wanted to do all the things that the main game did. So we wanted to provide a new area, a new culture, but we also wanted to give Aloy relationships to delve into and ultimately a storyline that does what a lot of other quests in the game do.
While the new area is considered more dangerous, it's also not a post-game update, despite raising the level cap from 50-60. Lead quest designer David Ford says the Frozen Wilds is more like a mid-to-end game level of difficulty, but players will be able to experience it with some new skills and weapons.
We consider it to be more of a mid-to-end game in terms of the difficulty set.
We focused on some quality of life improvements in the new skills and also added a little bit of a pizzazz. There are some cool new skills that add some new combat dimensions and some new ways to interact with machines.
We have both upgraded versions of weapons you’ve seen in the past and we’ve some brand new weapons which explore some different ways of fighting. We’ve been experimenting with some tweaks on the game’s systems and we think they’re a lot of fun to play with.
I'm curious for those players, like myself, who obtained the hidden armor set "Shield Weaver" which tends to make players almost invulnerable, will this new area still present a challenge?
The Frozen Wilds will launch on November 7 and will cost $19.99, unless you're a PS Plus subscriber, in which case it will only cost $14.99.
