Horizon: Zero Dawn – what is the story behind the game’s strange inhabitants?

Sony’s epic new PS4 exclusive may have been delayed until next year, but GameCentral has already played it and spoken to the developers.

Even since the first bit of leaked artwork appeared we’ve been dying to get our hands on Horizon: Zero Dawn. We’re really no fans of Guerrilla Games’ work on the Killzone series, but the bizarre and beautiful designs of robot animals and dinosaurs immediately sparked our imagination. It helped that the game concept seemed interesting too – an open world adventure in a post-apocalyptic setting – and having now played the game we can report that it does live up to at least most of our expectations.



The backstory to what exactly has happened in Horizon’s world is currently a mystery, for the simple reason that the characters in the game don’t know either. But it’s been a thousand years since Armageddon, and while humans live an almost prehistoric lifestyle the world is overrun by animal-shaped robots. Although overrun is probably not the right word, as up until the events of the game they’ve lived in harmony with both the humans and normal, organic animals.

But as our initially hands-off demo begins heroine Aloy becomes disturbed at reports of a ‘demon’ that is reprogramming robots to attack human settlements. Equipped with a bow and a number of other seemingly low tech weapons she sets off to investigate, only to find something that looks like a robotic version of the bugs from Starship Troopers as the source of the trouble. (What we’re being shown is an extended version of the game’s pre-E3 press conference demo.)


Although she uses bows and slingshots, Aloy’s weapons are not all they first seem. They’re made up of high tech components and can be upgraded with mods that add to their abilities and attack power. Aloy also has a holographic display to track robots and analyse their weaknesses, so whatever the backstory to the game is it’s not a simple one.

Aloy can even reprogram robots herself, although this is apparently a skill learnt a little way into the game, and we note that the demo characters are both already at level 14. As the would-be demon proves a little too much for her, Aloy is set off to find a wildebeest-like robot which she reprograms to become her mount – which she can ride around on and still fire her bow from. Soon enough the demon is brought down, in part also thanks to grapples that fix into the ground and prevent it from jumping.

It’s all very impressive but we’re itching to get a go ourselves, and when we do we find the controls and combat to be extremely intuitive and fun. On the face of it there’s not much in common between Killzone and Horizon (Guerrilla wouldn’t be drawn on whether Aloy ever ends up wielding guns of any kind). But according to the developers they did learn a lot from their early games, about how to orchestrate combat, and this has helped to make Horizon a lot faster-paced than the average action role-player.

Horizon: Zero Dawn – this is the ‘demon’ attacking other robots

Aloy jumps and rolls around the landscape with an agility and fluidity that is significantly different from the clunky combat of something like The Witcher 3. There’s a minor stealth element too, where you can duck down and hide in long grass, or creep up on robots from behind for an instant kill. As such, the female lead and use of a bow also brings to mind the modern Tomb Raider games.



By Guerrila’s own admission though, the role-playing elements are fairly light and more focused towards crafting than stats. Every downed robot and animal yields a resource of some kind, and you’re able to craft things like fire arrows, explosive traps, and an electrified tripwire. Some require specific components, such as the fuel canisters on some robots’ backs, and these can be shot off independently and collected later.

The robots both look and act like real animals, and will chose to fight or flee depending on the situation. The heard of wildebeest-like robots we encounter seems to live in partnership with raptor-like creatures called Watchers, which patrol the perimeter of the herd and will chase after you if they spot you – and search around if they lose sight of you again.

Horizon: Zero Dawn – Aloy can chat to people Mass Effect style

Other creatures will ignore you unless you attack them, such as the crab-like Shell Walkers which carry around crates full of resources on their back. These can be easily dislodged if you shoot the locking mechanism, although the Shell Walker will pick it up again and hold it in its hand if you don’t get to it first.

Horizon is a fascinating mix of familiar gameplay concepts and some impressively odd world design and creatures (we got the lead artist to admit that Zoids had been a childhood favourite). But while we enjoyed our hands-on there is a question about just how deep the gameplay runs, and whether it will sustain the entire length of the single-player campaign. Far Cry Primal did fine on less, but we’re hoping that Horizon will end up as something far more significant and ambitious than that.


Thanks to its recent delay it will be even longer until we find out for sure, but for now we can say that this is definitely the best thing Guerrilla has ever done, and one of the best looking games on the PlayStation 4. The question now is whether it becomes anything more than that.

Formats: PlayStation 4

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Developer: Guerrilla Games

Release Date: 3rd March 2017

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