While most of the world has only known about Horizon: Zero Dawn since E3 2015, the game has actually been in the making since 2010. Now, almost seven years later, Horizon: Zero Dawn will make its debut to the world on February 28th, 2017, and it's not an overstatement to say that it could very well be the PlayStation 4's best game to date. While we wait to see if that sentiment is true or not, developer Guerrilla Games has released some developer blogs on YouTube that give an inside look at the journey to the game's completion.
It only takes one look at the game to see, but Horizon: Zero Dawn was quite a massive undertaking. Not only regarding its breadth and scale, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that Guerrilla Games simply had never made an Action-RPG before. Suffice it to say; it was like learning a new language for a studio that had built itself up on the linear nature of the First-Person Shooter. It's not a simple matter of saying, "I guess we're going to make an open world RPG now," and then magically do it. It takes time to learn the complexities of the systems before even deciding what kind of Action RPG to make. All of this is detailed in the video above.
Another thing Guerrilla Game had to do, was turn around and invest in itself. Open world Action RPGs are a different beast, and if it wasn't evident from their previous work over the years with KillZone, the narrative wasn't exactly it's number one priority. As a result, the studio brought in Quest Designers and writers who had previously worked on other games in the genre, who found themselves in a situation where the world and its features were already established. It was just a matter of how to put it together in a way that made sense.
Of course, as it is with any RPG, if you aren't building a character customization system, you have to take great care in making a character that scores of people can relate to. In the early goings, that appears to be the case with Aloy. Guerrilla Games says they have already gotten great feedback from fans around the world and Aloy herself is proving to be quite popular among cosplayers, a trend that is likely to increase after the game launches. The developers compare their situation with how Naughty Dog was able to develop Nathan Drake in Uncharted, creating a face that everyone could recognize immediately and enjoy embarking upon a journey with.
Horizon: Zero Dawn releases on February 28th, 2017 exclusively for PS4.
Source: [PlayStation Blog]
