Horizon: Zero Dawn will pit a primitive, post-apocalypse humanity against sentient machine animals.
Sony and Guerrilla Games have announced Horizon: Zero Dawn. The new PS4 game was revealed this evening at Sony’s E3 2015 conference along with a trailer that laid down the basics of the story and showed off a bit of gameplay.
The trailer begins with a Aloy, the game’s protagonist, describing the state of the world which, put shortly, isn’t the best. Human society as we know it has collapsed and, while its diminished state has allowed nature to flourish, the world is still far from ideal. Existing alongside the human tribes and natural wildlife, you see, is a collection of machine/animal hybrids that are hostile to human life. As you can probably imagine, fighting mechanized monsters is the sort of thing that puts a damper on re-population efforts.
Once the narration ends, the trailer switches over to a gameplay segment where Aloy stalks and hunts a herd of machines. While she’s able to bring down a few, her assault quickly catches the attention of a larger dinosaur-like robot that attacks her. The ensuing battle shows Aloy using her primitive weapons to target and pierce the robot’s defenses and take it down. After this the trailer shifts back to a cinematic where Aloy claims that the balance between humanity and the machines can’t last much longer and that she intends to be ready when the feces hits the fan.
Neither Sony or Guerrilla have offered any sort of release window for the game. That said, PR materials released by the developer did include some additional details about the game’s plot. “Explore a vibrant and lush world inhabited by mysterious mechanized creatures,” said the release. “Embark on a compelling, emotional journey and unravel mysteries of tribal societies, ancient artifacts and advanced technologies that will determine the fate of this planet, and of life itself.”
While we apparently still have some time to wait before the game releases, it definitely seems like Guerrilla is aiming to deliver something big with Zero Dawn.
