It’s a good time to be a Sony fan. Many tantalizing developments were revealed today at Sony’s Paris Games Week 2015. While we did not receive any new streams or trailers for Horizon: Zero Dawn, the team at Guerrilla Games still delivered with an alternative version of its gameplay, and Senior Producer Mark Norris was kind enough to give us an insightful walkthrough of events.
For those of you in the dark, Horizon: Zero Dawn is a PS4 exclusive action-adventure RPG due in 2016. In it, we meet fiery huntress Aloy (who respectively resembles Rose Leslie of Game of Thrones fame). Quick with her bow and a few witty quips, Aloy uses stealth to carefully navigate her way through a vividly beautiful world–one that is green, and lush with danger. Set 1,000 years in the future, Earth has seen a shift in events. Human are no longer dominate; cities are empty shells, and the world seems to have renewed in the absence of humans–the burden of our colossal carbon-footprint lifted. Man now lives in hunter-gatherer tribes scattered across an expansive world, with deserts, forests, and mountains. We are not alone, however, as massive and mysterious machine roam among us, sentient and sometimes not friendly.
Earlier in the year, GG gave us a peek at what it looks like to fight some of these bionic beasts. This time, we gained so much more. Norris spoke on the game’s Role Playing elements, UI, crafting, and more. Most exciting, perhaps, was his stance on the Open World in HZD: “You’ll want to explore every nook and cranny in this open world,” Norris promises excitedly in his video, “…because you’ll never know what you’ll find.” In NZD, we can explore ancient cities, tops of mountains, valleys and various settlements. For many, the open world aspect fondly reminds fans of Skyrim, of hours spent pursuing the unknown with only the help of your compass and what you had on you, while the emphasis on stealth and silent takedowns brings others back to the days of Assassin’s Creed.
Any way you spin it, NZD brings a lot to the table, and while the game still seems to have a few kinks to work out, fans remain eager for the game’s PS4 exclusive launch in 2016.