Guerrilla Games demonstrated five different activities for Game Informer — but the studio noted that there are plenty more events that haven’t yet been unveiled to the public.
The first type of activity, known as a Corruption Zone, is a type of combat challenge that will be familiar to players who have spent lots of time with open world titles. These areas are filled with ferocious robots, and are a good opportunity for protagonist Aloy to earn experience.
Hunter Challenges are a different kind of combat test that focuses on individual pieces of weaponry and techniques. Players will be confined in terms of the weapons that they use, the enemies that they’re required to take down, and the amount of time that they’re give to do so — this activity is tied into a storyline in the city of Meridian that sees Aloy work her way through the ranks of a hunter’s guild.
Tribe Quests are another way that Guerrilla Games is using side quests to flesh out the game’s lore. Aloy has only known her own Nora tribe when Horizon Zero Dawn gets underway, but the needs of the various other cultures living in close proximity will form the basis of these varied quests.
Like many games that have released in the post-Minecraft landscape, Horizon Zero Dawn will also feature a crafting system. In this case, crafting is closely tied to hunting, as the resources you’ll need to implement particular recipes can only be earned by stalking your prey.
Finally, there are random events that will take place in the world around you, seemingly in the same vein as those featured in Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto V. The example give by the development team centers around an injured man asking for Aloy’s assistance in retrieving a spear bequeathed to his daughter.
By all accounts, it seems that Guerrilla Games is doing everything it can to ensure that the open world of Horizon Zero Dawn feels more alive and interactive than that of the heavily criticized No Man’s Sky. We won’t have to wait too long to find out whether these efforts pay off, as the game is set to release on February 28, 2017.
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