Horizon Zero Dawn™ will be released tomorrow (28th February) in Chinese, English and Korean. The key animator manager Roland Ijzermans has previously talked to THIS IS GAME to share more about the game, revealing the team’s inspirations and influences from Killzone.
Roland Ijzermans – Key Animator Manager
TIG: What challenges were there in the making of Horizon Zero Dawn™?
Roland Ijzermans: This is a new challenge to Guerrilla Games. In order to optimise the performance, we recruited new members as well as developers from other units.
TIG> The game is made with Decima, an engine that Kojima Production is now using. Will Death Stranding’s graphics be able to reach the level of Horizon Zero Dawn™?
Roland Ijzermans: Kojima Production has their own secret tricks beside those we have told them. Kojima Production and us are in a mutual relationship where we are both looking for optimising the use and performance of PS4. We are grateful that they are using it.
TIG> We are impressed by the world in the game. The combination of nature and robots is an unique concept.
Roland Ijzermans: We came up with this combinatiom after many discussions. The game’s world contrasts greatly with the real one. It demonstrates how humanity loses technology and becomes dominated by robots.
TIG> This is the first open world game by Guerrilla. Was there any error when testing it?
Roland Ijzermans: We started with a testing within the small team of Killzone. At first, we wanted to make hunting robot animals a centre gameplay. Using the resources from Killzone, the weapon choice was guns instead of bows. After feeling guns lack the sense of hunting in the wild, we decided to use bows. This is also to bring forth the sense of beasts hunting. Killzone is the reason why we are confident enough to make an action RPG.
TIG> Where did you get the idea of robots walking like animals?
Roland Ijzermans: To make our designs more scientific, we visited some experts on robots and asked for their opinions on how future robots are made, how they look, etc..
TIG> Robots have different appearances, and so the tactics for combat are also different. Is this something you had in mind at the very beginning?
Roland Ijzermans: Indeed. All robots are a collective work of artists and developers. We decided how the robots work and react together during the early stage.
TIG> This reminds me of Zoids. Were you influenced by it?
Roland Ijzermans: Many asked this question. The team did not really take inspirations from Zoids, but still, since many of them were born in the eighties, I do believe franchises like Zoids, Mechwarrior, and Transformers do influence them personally.
TIG> Killzone is a successful FPS experience that gains so much popularity. I assume a new genre must be a great challenge?
Roland Ijzermans: There is a robot called Thunder Jaw in the game. We made it with Legos to understand its weakness and balance much better when we first designed it. We had fun looking for the every possible weakness in this RPG.
TIG> How big is the map and how long does it take to beat the game?
Roland Ijzermans: Players who spend 60-70 hours on the game will be able to finish 85% of the game. There are a lot of missions. It is possible to do a speed run, but it’s better to check out various things on their way.
TIG> Is there a side mission you recommend?
Roland Ijzermans: In the game there is an unpurchasable weapon which deals a lot of damage called SONIC BLAST, I would recommend doing that mission.
TIG> You once said to other media that Horizon Zero Dawn’s protagonist Aloy was influenced by Game of Thrones’ Ygritte, how do other similar works affect the world of Horizon Zero Dawn?
Roland Ijzermans: When creating Aloy, we focused on making a character that would catch people’s attention, the entire process went through a lot of reworks and modification. To make our protagonist’s hunter essence more vibrant, we specifically designed her outfits to have a swift, agile animal hunter impression.
The tribe that Aloy belongs to is known to have the strongest hunters, specialising in hunting and gathering, hunting down the mechanic creatures that roam the world and using their body parts for armors. Their houses are built mainly from wood. There are over 80 concept arts for the tribe, using African, Vietnamese, Eskimos and other tribal cultures as references.
TIG> The atmosphere for day and night is vastly different, how does this affect the player, where did you get the inspiration for this idea?
Roland Ijzermans: We had a realistic approach when designing the day and night cycle for the game, players will feel like watching a nature documentary. To make the game’s environment as real as we can, the team spent a lot of time researching on the subject. The day and night cycle is seamlessly incorporated into the game, players can choose when to start their mission to make full use of the day or the night.
TIG> Will there be DLCs or Expansions in the future?
Roland Ijzermans: Right now we are focusing on releasing the game, the furture contents will be announced when the timing is appropriate.
TIG> After E3 2015, the game has appeared in all sorts of exhibitions, developing the game and participating in these exhibitions couldn’t have been an easy task.
Roland Ijzermans: Yes, our schedules were very tight, other than a small team working on exhibitions, most people were focusing on developing the game. E3 is a very important exhibition, we pushed back all internal schedules for it. Because Horizon Zero Dawn is an open world game, we spent a lot of time creating an unrestricted experience for players. We tried to express this at our exhibition events.
TIG> Killzone’s Helghast design was incredibly iconic, will Horizon Zero Dawn also introduce characters with such an impact?
Roland Ijzermans: Although the game is unrelated to Killzone’s universe, but we have strong feelings for the character, if you look closely you will find similarities in some of the outfits.
TIG> Will there be a possibility that Helghast makes an appearance in DLCs or Expansions?
Roland Ijzermans: We’ll have to give this idea to the designers first (laughs).
TIG> Any last words to our users?
Roland Ijzermans: I am very pleased to present Horizon Zero Dawn. I hope that all the joy we felt in the six years of development can be shared with players and I hope that players will enjoy their adventures in the game.
Translated from: http://www.thisisgame.com/webzine/news/nboard/5/?n=69301
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