How does a studio
that was only known for linear first person shooters,
manage to create a massively successful open world game
that is so different on its first try?
With the highly anticipated sequel,
Horizon Forbidden West, being released in February 2022
it’s time to go through this incredible journey.
This is the evolution of Horizon Zero Dawn!
Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing game
developed by Guerrilla Games and released for the PlayStation 4 in 2017.
The initial development of this game started in 2011
and it took Guerrilla six years of hard work to come up with this masterpiece.
The story is set in the post-apocalyptic United States
over 1,000 years after the collapse of human civilization.
Players assume the role of a young hunter known as Aloy
as she explores a vast and beautiful open world dominated by robotic creatures.
On February 18 2022
a highly anticipated sequel will be released,
so without delay
let’s go through the Evolution of Horizon Zero Dawn.
Before the production of Horizon Zero Dawn,
Guerrilla was known for Killzone,
a linear first-person shooter series.
It was impressive what the company had created with a small budget
and Killzone became a successful franchise.
However, following the release of Killzone 3,
Guerilla started considering the idea of developing a new game.
To make things interesting everyone at the company was invited to pitch their own ideas.
The game would be set in a post-apocalyptic world
with a female protagonist
trying to understand what had happened in the past.
It was also going to feature an open world,
which Guerrilla was not familiar with at the time.
Although the concept was well defined,
Guerrilla was skeptical at first
and gave it little attention.
They started working on another project
that they thought was safer and better.
This unreleased game would share similar features with Killzone
which they were already familiar with.
However, they just couldn’t get Horizon out of their minds,
in the final minutes,
they pitched the idea to Sony to explore their new concept.
In 2011 a small group of only 8 people
started working on the concept of Horizon Zero Dawn.
The rest of the studio was still focusing on Killzone: Shadow Fall.
The goal of this concept phase was to design
what Horizon was going to become by answering questions like
and of course;
But another major goal was to make it playable as soon as possible.
At the time the studio only had the developer tools of Killzone,
but no tools for creating an open world
with a different style of combat,
which made it all very challenging.
Instead of creating something simple at the start,
they immediately started working on the most complex
and difficult machine they could think off,
the Thunderjaw.
The idea behind it was if they would manage to
tackle the gameplay elements needed for the Thunderjaw
then they could later use these mechanics for smaller robots.
The team basically made a Lego version of the Thunderjaw,
with many different parts.
Surprisingly, many of these early concepts from 2011
actually made it in the final game.
In this prototype developers tested the mechanics
of the Thunderjaw to know how it would feel,
look
and how the machine would interact with the player.
In total it took the team roughly two years to develop the Thunderjaw.
Besides the machines and gameplay Guerilla also started working on the open world.
Instead of the dark dystopian worlds
they had created in the Killzone games,
they wanted to create a beautiful and colorful world
where people wanted to spend time in.
The team watched a lot of BBC documentaries to get inspiration from nature.
Yet again, the team decided to tackle the most difficult part first,
which was to build a huge city known as Mesa City.
This would be the center of the story.
While it still exists in the game
it doesn’t play a central role anymore.
It is much smaller now, and has a new name.
It is now called "Meridian".
At the time Aloy would ride a normal horse,
which eventually was changed as it felt weird to
have a normal horse in a world full of machines.
Mount riding was also an important part of the game,
since the player needed to be able to travel
through the dense forest without having to crash against trees.
This resulted in mechanics
where the horse on which you are riding
constantly adjusts its course.
Fun Fact
Horizon was first going to be a game
where players could play together with Co-op.
However, by doing this they had to sacrifice detail
and the team was not willing to do that.
The final part of the concept phase
was to create a proof of concept.
Now that the team had built many prototypes
it was time to merge them together.
At this stage, the open world was beginning to look more realistic
with vegetation and different machines.
It also allowed the player to interact with the environment,
hunt machines, and even gather parts to upgrade their armors.
Many of the core questions had been answered in the concept stage,
but also new questions were raised, like
But one of the key questions that yet had to be answered was
The concept phase lasted for two and a half years,
before Guerrilla continued to the next phase.
Fun Fact
The world map was originally almost 5 times bigger than its current size.
The reason for the reduction in size
was that it made the world denser and more interesting.
After the release of Killzone: Shadow Fall in late 2013,
Guerrilla’s remaining staff began working on Horizon Zero Dawn.
This increased the number of people working on the game
from about 10 to 180 people.
It marked the beginning of the pre-production phase.
The studio started focusing on quests,
activities,
characters,
adding areas to the world
and defining the story.
While the team had already been working on the story in the concept phase,
it still wasn’t a well-defined story.
Approximately 20 different stories were written for the game,
all exploring various concepts.
The developers basically had zero experience in story-telling
since it was outsourced to other companies for Killzone.
Yet, they managed to create an amazing story-driven game,
that countless people around the world came to love.
The story also helped in defining Aloy, the main protagonist.
While Aloy was already there from the start,
she lacked details.
During this phase Aloy was given a character and personality.
At the time Aloy’s horse was also replaced by a machine named the Strider.
The team also created new machines.
Initially all the machines were meant to be dangerous,
but in this phase, each machine received a unique behavior, look and feel.
In total the game has 26 types of machines.
At the end of the pre-production phase,
they had built most of the core mechanics,
the world and the narrative.
Fun fact
The Tall Necks were originally huntable.
This idea was scrapped
because some of the team thought
this was not in line with Aloy’s character
since the Tall Necks were not aggressive.
Now that all core questions have been answered,
the next phase was the production phase.
Here Guerilla’s goal was to finalize the core mechanics
and make the entire game playable.
Although they thought they had everything sorted out at this stage,
they still continued to encounter problems.
For instance, there was too much human combat,
while the focus of the game was meant to be on combat with machines.
The reason for this was that robots cannot speak,
and to make the story compelling more human characters had to be added,
which meant that fighting humans went from a secondary activity to a primary one.
During the last phase they started playtesting
to allow gamers to give feedback.
One of the problems they soon encountered was
there were too many resources which made it too complex.
These problems were fixed to make the game more enjoyable.
According to Guerrilla, some of the reviews were brutal,
but improving on them made Horizon Zero Dawn become the successful game it is today.
Horizon Zero Dawn was officially announced
during Sony’s E3 2015 press conference
and two years later in 2017 the game was released for the PlayStation 4.
In Horizon Zero Dawn players can explore the beautiful open world
with different environments including deserts,
snowy mountains
and forests.
They can also complete major quests as well as side quests.
Aloy can kill enemies in a variety of ways, such as using a spear,
shooting arrows or using explosives.
Each machine is unique and built for different purposes.
In November 2017 an expansion was released called The Frozen Wilds.
It adds a new story,
characters,
machines
and an entirely new area.
In August 2021 an update was released for Horizon Zero Dawn
for the next-generation PlayStation 5.
It boosts the performance to 4K at 60 frames per second,
making the game even more stunning than before.
Horizon Zero Dawn was praised by critics for its open world,
visuals,
combat,
story
and the voice-acting of Aloy.
However, the dialogue,
melee combat and character models
received some criticism.
The game became a massive success and won many awards.
For Guerilla it was easily their most successful title ever,
far exceeding the sales of the Killzone games.
In total over 10 million copies were sold by February 2019,
making it one of the bestselling PlayStation 4 games.
On February 18 2022
a sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn will be released,
Horizon Forbidden West, for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
Horizon Forbidden West continues the story of Aloy
to the arcane frontier known as the Forbidden West.
The events of the game take place in post-apocalyptic California,
Utah, and Nevada.
It includes recognizable locations
including a ruined San Francisco.
According to Guerilla the game adds even bigger and more awe-inspiring machines.
The world will also be larger than in the previous game,
adds underwater exploration
and will feature improved travelling options,
revamped climbing mechanics
and enhanced melee combat.
The graphics certainly looks stunning,
with densely packed environments
and I can’t wait to explore them!
Are you also excited for Horizon Forbidden West?
Let us know in the comments!