Horizon: Zero Dawn – New Details on Traversal, Open World AND More

In an interview with Guerrilla Games, developers of the highly-anticipated Horizon: Zero Dawn, GamesRadar revealed a surprising number of details pertinent to the game’s combat and travel systems.

GamesRadar sat down with studio art director Jan Bart Van Beek, who explained that, “The whole world is explorable. Every mountaintop is accessible, every river you can go through, every valley, and this is basically one of many valleys.”

Zero Dawn was also revealed to be a post-apocalyptic game that happens “a thousand years beyond modern civilization’s collapse,” with promises of unique weapons and enemies that you will encounter on your travels. One such weapon is called the “Rope Caster,” and is utilized in pinning enemies to the ground so you can finish them off with stunning accuracy. Combat was explained to be “very tactical,” giving the edge to players who choose the intellectual route, rather than brute force strategies.

Beek also said that there are three distinct fighting styles available to players: “There’s one that’s very much focused on stealth, one that’s focused on firepower, one that’s focused on setting traps and hunting. So there are ways where you get to customise your character and tune her more towards your play style, or develop them all to make her more into a Jack of all trades.” All of the combat methodologies, however, will focus on the ever-important bow that the protagonist uses. Her people in the game “have a limited understanding of the technology,” says Beek, “enough that they can make explosive arrows from the shells that the machines use but they don’t have enough knowledge to reverse engineer any of this.”

Beek states that the experience system is very ingrained into the game’s various perks and abilities. There is a huge emphasis on RPG elements in Zero Dawn, some of which will have players harvesting parts from fallen robots; from this material, players will craft new armor, weapons and ammo types. Upgrading your character’s perks will allow players to progress in each fighting style, unlocking abilities like stealth kills or precision aiming mode – which is basically “bullet-time” for those of you familiar with other games utilizing the same mechanic.

Beek also went on to talk about Zero Dawn’s travel system, noting that players will have to cross all sorts of different obstacles: “you can climb up mountains, climb into trees, swim through rivers.” This will give players a second option away from combat, with the option of fleeing being a completely plausible strategy.

Zero Dawn will be a single-player game for the most part, according to Beek, however, “There are certain social features in there.”