Only one month separates gamers from PS4’s exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn (February 28th). This week, not only did Sony release their own Play With The Devs playthrough; but they also organized global events for YouTube personalities to play and record for up to five hours.
That leaves us with an amazing amount of footage on Guerilla Games’ apocalyptic mechanical world. It looks bright, alive, dominated by nature and biomechanical life. Within hides the remains of a futuristic civilization, destroyed by its own creations and now inhabited by primitive tribes.
Put your elemental bow down and let your electronic preys rest. It’s time to take a closer look at the game’s features to discover what Horizon: Zero Dawn brings.
A Fresh Take On The Apocalypse
First of all, this game’s setting stands out in a stereotyped genre. Any open world apocalypse game can suffer from repetition and lack of exploration incentive. Most of the time this results in everything being…dead and uninviting. Horizon: Zero Dawn premieres a location that doesn’t fit said definition at all. With a genuine twist, roles are reversed and cavemen find us. Well, a much more advanced version of us.
A few human tribes still roam these lands surviving a blooming world. The thing is, this world was born from humanity’s super futuristic ashes, so robotic fauna is a thing, and ancient ruins are actually incredibly advanced facilities!
The player will make an impact on these territories. Decision making, even in dialog form, will be available together with lots of side quests to get involved with. Old forts and their problems aren’t the only things around, many personal quests will appear regarding your connection with “The Old Ones”.
Aloy’s an outcast huntress, shunned at birth for a reason she has yet to learn. In her adventure the protagonist will have to uncover the secrets behind the prior end of the world to stop the corruption’s origins. This dark technology takes over mechanic creatures and turns them hostile, and a masked tribe took advantage of this power somehow.
There’s so much beauty to this game. The warm color palette shines during the day, while bright electric lights dominate the nights. Mountains, deserts, rivers, forests, tundras; a beautiful and natural scenery that combines excellently with the ethereal machinery remains. The abundant robotic creatures look, behave and react as animals, giving the player a unique environment to feast on. Besides, fast travel is a crafted resource. You won’t have the chance to spam that feature, so better start exploring and leave nothing unchecked!
Gameplay’s Familiar, But With Personality
Guerrilla Games is known for the classic PlayStation FPS Killzone. With Horizon: Zero Dawn, they changed their focus style into an open world adventure system with RPG traits. It’s a completely different path. There’s no doubt about the game’s stunning atmosphere, and the amazing design delivered by developers. However, when you see how the game plays, it feels… familiar.
When inspecting Horizon: Zero Dawn‘s we can reminisce of The Witcher, Assasin’s Creed and even Far Cry Primal. Many things cause this. The controls, movement, the hud, the stealth system; it’s not necessarily a negative aspect. There won’t be tutorials wasting your time, most of the game’s features are intuitive and answer to gaming’s current tendencies.
One of the key features is Aloy’s Focus gadget. It serves as a scanner, much like Geralt’s senses in The Witcher. Many mechanics depend on it, both combat and story wise. You can scan an area and mark enemies, predict their movements, find clues, or analyze an enemy’s weak points; at the same time, since it’s an artifact from the past, you can use it to identify ancient technology and recover pieces of information about the old world.
While using the focus we notice yet another of the game’s traits. Many crafting materials come from the machines, and how we fight them will directly impact in the loot we get. Take Grazers as an example. The deer-like mechanic creatures hold blaze canisters on their backs, a crucial substance.
You can shoot them with your elemental War Bow, light them up and create a huge explosion; or take your Sharpshot bow, used to dismantle parts, and knock the canisters off for collection. A third approach would be the sneak takedown, salvaging even more parts.
Although there is a fourth way… Hacking! Overriding creatures is another mechanic implemented by Guerilla Games, providing Aloy with many perks. Climb Tallnecks and override them to reveal a portion of the map, or do so with Broadheads to use them as a swift mount. Slowly, players will discover how to make use of technology to their favor.
Crafting: Keeping it Simple And Essential
Salvaging and crafting is a huge part of this people’s life. They don’t rule the world, machines do, so they need to scavenge to live. But what does the crafting system look like? It’s similar to Far Cry, simple and straightforward. You will have more trouble fighting for your resources than figuring it out. The system covers from the basic elemental shock arrow crafting, to the progressive upgrade of your carrying capacity, weapons, and armor.
A slot upgrade system has been revealed with the videos. Different enemies will drop items that can be attached to your gear, giving it certain bonuses or protections.
At the moment, crafting will be important for Aloy’s combat strategy. Different enemies require different firepower. Your main alternatives being fire, shock and explosive damage. Without going to the extreme that The Witcher 3 presented, Aloy will certainly have many tricks up her sleeve to deal with both humans and machines.
Combat, Skills and Aloy’s Arsenal
Horizon: Zero Dawn’s protagonist is an agile huntress, fit for stunts and sharp decision making. When in a fight, Aloy moves effortlessly around, dashing and jumping trying to avoid being hit. Not without a great arsenal, unlockable skills and some strategic thinking though!
The skill tree implemented consists on three brances with four levels and two columns each. As you level up, you’ll get the points necessary to unlock these badges, expanding Aloy’s skills. It involves passive and active benefits, like silent takedowns and the ability to lure enemies with sounds.
As for Aloy’s arsenal, she wields a lance in close quarters. Use it to slash fiercely or silently stab someone from a bush. However, most of the times she relies on ranged weapons and traps, true to her profession. At the time we’ve seen over seven of these. The classic slingshot; a Ropecaster that binds creatures to surfaces and holds them down; the Tripcaster, which plants wire traps; the Sharpshot Bow, for precise technical shots; the War Bow, for high damage; and finally, the mentioned melee lance. Ammunition and traps usually come in three forms: regular, fire and shock.
Combat revolves around need and the player’s intentions. Are you sneaking in? Do you need to raid a village? Or are you taking on the T-Rex look-alike, the Thunderjaw? Stop and plan, because each machine has armor, defenses, and huge weapons attached. Seriously, rockets and lasers.
After breaking down the new gameplay footage, we can expect successful fights to feel like a coordinated dance. The player should place traps, lure the enemy and begin the encounter with the slight advantage of knowing its weaknesses. What’s more, you can use the Thunderjaw’s strengths against him. Take a lucky shot while he’s shocked and detach the machine’s disc launcher from its back. Then you’ll have some some serious firepower. Also, certain specific shots can debilitate your foes, taking for example their scanner or exposing vulnerabilities.
Still, if something goes wrong, they won’t be forgiving. Corrupted machines are more powerful, and relentless. Once out of stealth it will take a quick hand to place traps on its way, always looking for that extra second when aiming for weaknesses.
As we lay most cards on the table, we can see that Horizon: Zero Dawn took solid core game mechanics and applied it to an extremely attractive story. If there are no surprises at launch, Guerilla Games’ new title could leave a mark in PlayStation’s exclusive list. With Aloy as a memorable huntress. Capable of saving her world at the same time as she discovers a buried one.
