Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn is a 2017 action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The first instalment in the Horizon video game series, it is set in a post-apocalyptic United States where large robotic machines dominate the Earth while humans live in primitive tribes with varying levels of technological development. The game follows Aloy, a young huntress who sets out to uncover her past. The player uses ranged weapons, a spear, and stealth to combat mechanical creatures and other enemy forces. A skill tree provides the player with new abilities and bonuses. The player can explore the open world to discover locations and take on side quests. Horizon Zero Dawn was Guerrilla Games' first new intellectual property since Killzone in 2004 and its first open-world and role-playing game. Director Mathijs de Jonge considered it the riskiest idea among those pitched. Development began in 2011 after the completion of Killzone 3. The game engine, Decima, was developed for Killzone: Shadow Fall and modified for Zero Dawn. The game uses vibrant colours and was designed to evoke a sense of adventure and hope despite its post-apocalyptic setting. Anthropologists were consulted to inform the world's decay, while experts in robotics were consulted to develop realistic machine designs. Non-fiction books by Jared Diamond, and futuristic fiction such as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Princess Mononoke (1997), influenced the design of the game's setting and narrative. The game's cast included Ashly Burch and Lance Reddick, while the soundtrack was composed by Joris de Man, featuring contributions from The Flight. Released for the PlayStation 4 in February 2017, the game was ported to Windows in 2020 as the first in a series of PlayStation-exclusive video games arriving on personal computers. A remastered version of the game, developed by Nixxes Software, was released in October 2024. Zero Dawn received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its setting, story, visuals, and combat; however, its role-playing mechanics and unoriginal gameplay received some criticism. The game won numerous awards including one British Academy Games Awards and two D.I.C.E. Awards, and has sold over 24 million units. An expansion, The Frozen Wilds, was released in November 2017. A sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, was released in February 2022. Events in the game are reinterpreted comically in Lego Horizon Adventures. A film adaptation is in the works by PlayStation Productions and Columbia Pictures.

Gameplay

Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing game played from a third-person view. The player controls Aloy, a huntress who ventures through a post-apocalyptic land ruled by machine creatures. These machines and human enemies, like bandits and cultists, are the game's main types of enemies. Aloy can dodge, sprint, slide, or roll to evade her enemies. Armed with a spear for melee combat, Aloy can also shoot enemies with bows and arrows, set traps such as tripwires, harpoon them to the ground to restrict their movement, or slingshot explosives at them. Different ammunition types offer specialised utility. For example, some arrows help the player dismantle a machine's offensive capabilities by tearing off specific components and disabling weapons, while others can burn or stun enemies. Weapons can also be modified to enhance their qualities such as increasing their damage output or improving their handling. The player can also hide in foliage to ambush nearby enemies, and distract enemies by throwing rocks or whistling. Aloy wears a Focus, a small earpiece that scans machines to identify their location, susceptibilities, level, and the nature of loot they will drop. Information about these machines is then stored in an in-game journal. Machines are categorised into different classes, including Acquisition, Combat, Recon, and Transport, each of which determines their behaviour and response to the player. Horizon Zero Dawn features an open world that can be freely explored by players. The player uses campfires to save their progress and travel quickly to other locations across the map. Aloy can hack a selection of machines with her spear, some of which can be turned into makeshift mounts. Scaling and hacking large giraffe-like machines known as Tallnecks reveal locations of interest around the map. Exploring underground ruins unlocks additional machines to hack. The main questline handles the major mysteries regarding Aloy's origins and side quests flesh out the world's culture and answer smaller questions. Players can choose from several responses when communicating with non-player characters (NPC), allowing them to shape Aloy's personality during social interactions. The player can also complete optional activities, such as raiding bandit camps, completing hunting challenges, and clearing combat trials in areas of heightened difficulty. The player can find a variety of collectables throughout the game, such as vantages that offer visual information of a past civilisation, metal flowers that contain poetry, and old relics, such as ancient mugs and tribal artefacts. During exploration, players collect natural resources and machine parts to craft ammo, traps, and potions. Hunting animals also provides materials to craft upgrades that allow Aloy to carry more arrows and consumables. The player can visit merchants to sell unwanted scraps, and purchase additional weapons and outfits. Aloy earns experience points (XP) by completing quests and activities. While individual kills provide a baseline amount of XP, the game rewards skilful play, such as stealth takedowns or headshots, with bonus XP. Once enough XP is accumulated, the player earns Skill Points for upgrading Aloy's abilities. Skills are divided into three categories, allowing players to separately upgrade Aloy's stealth abilities, enhance her combat effectiveness, and improve her healing and gathering capabilities. Through upgrades, Aloy can perform additional feats such as aiming a bow in slow motion, shooting multiple arrows at once, or collecting more resources from each defeated enemy. The player receives rarer variants of the same weapon as they progress the game, allowing access to more ammo types and providing more modification slots.

Synopsis

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