Horizon Zero Dawn

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Horizon Zero Dawn
Logo Horizon Zero Dawn.svg
Studio Guerrilla Games
Publisher Sony Interactive Entertainment
Senior Developer David Ford
Erstveröffent-
lichung		 North AmericaNorth AmericaFebruary 28, 2017 (PS4) March 1, 2017 (PS4) August 7, 2020 (PC)
EuropeEurope
world
platform PlayStation 4 , Windows
Game engine Decima
genre Action RPG
Subject Post apocalypse
Game mode Single player
control DualShock 4 , keyboard & mouse
medium Blu-ray , download
language u. a. English & German
Age rating
USK released from 12
PEGI recommended for ages 16+
PEGI content
rating
Game contains violence

Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing game developed by the Dutch developer Guerrilla Games .

The game was originally developed exclusively for the PlayStation 4 , but was also released for Windows on August 7, 2020 . In 2015 and 2016, Horizon Zero Dawn received the award for the best standalone game ( Best Original Game ) at the Game Critics Awards and in 2016 the Gamescom Award in the Best Preview category . The publisher is Sony Interactive Entertainment . The game was released in the USA on February 28, 2017 and in Europe on March 1, 2017. On June 11, 2020, the successor Horizon Forbidden West was announced in a live stream to unveil the PlayStation 5 .

action

The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic future, some 1000 years after the collapse of human civilization. The survivors of a catastrophe that was initially not described in more detail have joined together to form tribes at different, pre-industrial stages of development and live similar to the peoples of the Stone Age and ancient times , surrounded by the ruins of the so-called "ancients". The glaring difference: the game world is populated by futuristic machine beings, which (partly primeval) wild animals and dinosaurs are modeled in a cyberpunk look.

Humans and machines coexisted for a long time, with machines being hunted by humans for their components and resources. About 20 years before the game happens, a change occurs, what people call a "machine malfunction". This attacks the robots, which are increasingly becoming a deadly threat to the tribes. In addition, more and more new machine types specifically designed for combat emerged and threaten the remaining human race. The player takes on the role of the young huntress Aloy from the Nora tribe. Ejected from the tribe throughout her life due to her unknown origins, she sets out to search for answers - both as to her origins and what the puzzling disorder is all about.

Gameplay

Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing game and is controlled from the third-person perspective . In the battles, the player in the role of the protagonist Aloy has different weapons and strategies at his disposal and the battles are strongly tactical. Various bows and slings can be used to fire arrows with explosive or paralyzing effects and trip wires, throw bombs and set traps. In addition, the machine beings can also be hacked , which can then be used as mounts, among other things, to move faster through the game world. Defeated machine opponents leave behind electronic components to improve equipment, metal as a trading currency and various other resources. In fights against the particularly dangerous fighting machines, the player can dismantle their weapons through targeted fire and temporarily use them himself.

Aloy has a special device with which they can perform focus scans and thus detect information about their enemies, such as vulnerabilities, level, amount and type of resources to be captured, from a safe distance. In the battles, direct confrontation is not necessarily used, but a combination of stealth tactics, evasive maneuvers and attacks. The weapons and ammunition types are selected at any time via a menu in the form of a wheel. The game offers an open game world with a dynamic day and night cycle and allows free exploration, as well as the assumption of optional side missions. In addition to some ruined areas, the game world itself includes various features of nature, from snow-covered mountains, barren desert landscapes to tropical jungle areas, all of which, however, repeatedly reveal relics of the lost world. Some types of machines are largely located in the areas that are closest to their biological origins. The fights are not influenced by the regularly occurring weather influences. In addition to the independent exploration by the play figure, so-called long necks, giraffe-like radar and communication interface robots, can be climbed to unlock entire regions with additional information.

Voice actor

role German speaker Original speaker
Aloy Julia Casper Ashly Burch , Ava Potter
rust Thomas Dehler JB Blanc
Sylens Sascha Rotermund Lance Reddick
Elizabet Sobeck Daniela Bette-Koch Ashly Burch
Helicopters Tobias Brecklinghaus Crispin Freeman
Teb Dirk Hardegen Ako Mitchell , Christopher Ragland
Lansra Monika Müller-Heusch Ève Karpf
Olin Joplin Sibtain
Erend John Hopkins
Warlord Sona Adjoa Andoh
Resh Aart Veder Harry Myers
Balahn Michael-Che cook Alex Wyndham
Sun King Avad Marc Oliver Schulze Josh Keaton
Gaia Sonngard Dressler Lesley Ewen
Arana Yesim mastery Maria Swisher
Cantarah Shelley Longworth
Fig Lara Trautmann Maria Tressa Brooks
Grata Sibylle Nicolai
Keadi Claudia Urbschat-Mingues
Kindiv Aart Veder Garrick Hagon
Marea Christina Puciata Maria Teresa Creasey
Nile Dieter Gring Alex Lanipekun
Ravan Gordon Piedesack Michael S. Siegel
Talanah Christina Puciata Freya Parker
Uthid Richard van Weyden Nigel Barber
NPCs Martin Sabel, Antje von der Ahe , Jens Wendland ,

Nora Jokhos , Florian Seigerschmidt

development

After Guerrilla Games completed Killzone 3 in 2011 , new ideas for a game were looked for. Between 40 and 50 proposals for a future project were considered and Horizon Zero Dawn was ultimately awarded the contract. A risk, according to studio boss Hermen Hulst, because instead of continuing an already established brand , they will work on a new IP . The work began with a small core team and only after the release of Killzone: Shadow Fall did they concentrate fully on the development.

John R. Gonzalez, who was already responsible for the story of the action role-playing game Fallout: New Vegas , was hired as lead writer . About the creation of the protagonist, Hulst said that they did not want a typical muscle-bound giant as a hero, but consciously chose a female role that approaches the tasks with agility and sophistication and not with brutal violence. This is also the reason why the player cannot choose his own figure in terms of gender and appearance.

The role of the title heroine Aloy is played by the Dutch actress Hannah Hoekstra .

The cost of developing Horizon Zero Dawn was over 45 million euros . At times over 250 people worked on the game.

On June 12, 2017, an extensive DLC entitled The Frozen Wilds was announced as part of E3 and was released on November 7, 2017. He expands the play area in the northern mountains and tells a new story chapter. There are also new weapons and trophies.

reception

Reviews

Meta-ratings
Database Rating
GameRankings 88.49%
Metacritic 89/100
OpenCritic 89/100
reviews
publication Rating
4players 86/100
GamePro 90/100
IGN 9.3 / 10
Polygon 9.5 / 10

Initial comments from the trade press, which were able to test an advanced version of the game, mostly speak of an exciting gaming experience. The challenging, highly tactical fights and the detailed look of the game world were particularly praised. The graphic optimization for the PlayStation 4 Pro makes a 4K resolution possible.

The reviews of the game were mostly positive. Sun received Horizon Zero Dawn an aggregate score of 89/100 at Metacritic , based on 115 reviews.

Sales figures

Horizon Zero Dawn was the top-selling PlayStation 4 game in the UK for the first week after its launch, beating the other major release that week, Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild . Horizon Zero Dawn replaced No Man's Sky as the best launch of a new PlayStation 4 brand in the UK and had the most sales in the opening week of a PlayStation 4 title after Uncharted 4: A Thief's End . Sony announced in March 2017 that it had sold over 2.6 million copies of the title in the first two weeks since its release on February 28. In February 2018 it was announced that Sony had managed to sell 7.6 million copies of Horizon Zero Dawn in the first 12 months of its release . This made Horizon Zero Dawn the most successful new video game brand in 2017. In February 2019, it was announced that 10 million copies of Horizon Zero Dawn had been sold.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ blog.us.playstation.com
  2. ↑ playstation.com
  3. ↑ a b Horizon Zero Dawn: PC implementation has a release date. Retrieved July 6, 2020 .
  4. ↑ gamescom award | gamescom. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 1, 2017 ; accessed on March 8, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gamescom.de
  5. ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn: New Trailer, New Release Date. In: PlayStation.Blog. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Hands-on: Horizon Zero Dawn. Retrieved March 8, 2017 (Swiss Standard German).
  7. ^ Horizon Zero Dawn ™. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .
  8. ↑ Horizon: Zero Dawn in the E3 preview - sample impressions of the Sony blockbuster . In: PC GAMES . ( pcgames.de [accessed on March 8, 2017]).
  9. ↑ games.ch - Current Horizon: Zero Dawn News: Horizon: Zero Dawn - Preview - Jurassic Robo-World . In: games.ch . ( games.ch [accessed on March 8, 2017]).
  10. ↑ Jens-Magnus Krause: Horizon Zero Dawn: Killzone makers break new ground . In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . August 16, 2016 ( wz.de [accessed March 8, 2017]).
  11. ↑ Horizon: Zero Dawn: Interesting Background Facts About the Title . In: Gameswelt . December 5, 2016 ( gameswelt.de [accessed March 8, 2017]).
  12. ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn: Developers talk about story and RPG elements . In: GIGA . September 22, 2016 ( giga.de [accessed March 8, 2017]).
  13. ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn: Trailer is dedicated to Aloy's story. In: play3.de. December 14, 2016, accessed March 8, 2017 .
  14. ^ Horizon Zero Dawn: Guerrilla révèle l'actrice modélisée pour Aloy, la sublime Hannah Hoekstra. In: N-Gamz.com. March 7, 2017, accessed March 28, 2017 (French).
  15. ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn - Development Cost Over 45 Million - ps4info The PlayStation Blog . In: ps4info The PlayStation Blog . March 1, 2017 ( ps4info.de [accessed March 8, 2017]).
  16. ↑ Major Sock: Horizon Zero Dawn - DLC should be extensive. In: ps4info.de. June 16, 2017. Retrieved June 16, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Horizon: Zero Dawn for PlayStation 4. In: GameRankings . CBS Interactive Inc. , accessed January 4, 2018 .
  18. ↑ a b Horizon: Zero Dawn for PlayStation 4 Reviews. In: Metacritic . CBS Interactive Inc. , accessed November 18, 2017 .
  19. ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn for PS4 Reviews. In: OpenCritic . OpenCritic.com, LLC., Accessed January 4, 2018 .
  20. ↑ Lucy O'Brien: Horizon Zero Dawn Review. In: IGN . Ziff Davis , February 20, 2017, accessed February 22, 2017 .
  21. ↑ Philip Kollar: Horizon Zero Dawn Review. In: polygon . Vox Media , February 20, 2017, accessed February 22, 2017 .
  22. ↑ Tobias Veltin: Horizon: Zero Dawn in the test - masterful machine hunting. In: GamePro . Webedia, February 20, 2017, accessed February 22, 2017 .
  23. ↑ Jörg Luibl: Test: Horizon Zero Dawn. In: 4Players . Computec Media Group , February 21, 2017, accessed February 22, 2017 .
  24. ↑ Horizon: Zero Dawn: Outcast and On the Hunt . In: Gameswelt . August 18, 2016 ( gameswelt.de [accessed March 8, 2017]).
  25. ↑ Horizon: Zero Dawn Preview: In a Land After Our Time . In: Gamesaktuell . ( gamesaktuell.de [accessed on March 8, 2017]).
  26. ↑ How PS4 Pro makes Horizon Zero Dawn even better. In: The German-language PlayStation Blog. Retrieved March 8, 2017 .
  27. ↑ Ben Parfitt: Horizon Zero Dawn beats Zelda to No. 1. In: The Market for Computer & Video Games. NewBay Media, March 6, 2017, accessed March 7, 2017 .
  28. ↑ Tom Phillips: Horizon: Zero Dawn is Sony's biggest PS4 franchise debut. In: Eurogamer . Gamer Network, March 6, 2017, accessed March 7, 2017 .
  29. ↑ Christoph Vent: Horizon - Zero Dawn: Sony announces first sales figures // Guerrilla Games is working on expansion. In: Gamers Global. March 16, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2017 .
  30. ↑ Horizon Zero Dawn - Sony's birthday: 7.6 million sales in one year. Retrieved on August 27, 2018 (German).
  31. ↑ Horizon: Zero Dawn is the most successful new video game brand of 2017 - GamesWirtschaft.de . In: GamesWirtschaft.de . January 11, 2018 ( gameswirtschaft.de [accessed August 27, 2018]).
  32. ↑ Dominik Zwingmann: Horizon Zero Dawn: Sales figures reach ten million units. In: http://www.pcgames.de/ . February 28, 2019, accessed March 19, 2019 .