Guerrilla presents mecha-animals from the new -apkrig Horizon
The developers from the Guerrilla Games studio have published a long post on the PlayStation blog, which is fully dedicated to mechanical animals from the world of the upcoming game Horizon Forbidden West. The main heroine Aloy had something to do with them in the first part, but with the fact that the sequel should be bigger and more pompous in all respects, changes logically come in this field as well. The developers let mechanical animal designer Blake Politeski speak, who was at the birth of everyone robosaurů and remained with the team during the preparations for the second part. It describes how the whole process of creating one creature is created, how important it is to plant it in a prepared ecosystem, or where its team was inspired to make the machines believable even from the point of view of today’s player. It is therefore no surprise that this is a relatively demanding job, which, moreover, must be in line with what has already been created for the game or the first part and, in the end, prove again that it is a living ecosystem that has its justification.
“As part of the Horizon series, we will let players explore new areas,” says Politeski at the beginning. “It was interesting for us to figure out what types of machines will live in different areas and how they will interact with each other, with their surroundings and, of course, with people,” adds the designer, beginning the process. Developers have mechanical animals as administrators around the world with different roles directly linked to the appearance of each species and its characteristics. “During the development of Horizon Zero Dawn, we had a lot of ideas and not everything made it to the first game. At Forbidden West, however, we were able to combine some interesting ideas that were not previously feasible with new and no less interesting concepts, ”he says. dad all the Robosaurs from Horizon.
However, according to the developers, this is not only a nice piece of design, but also an interesting game dynamics, which is based simply on the fact that Sunwing will be vulnerable during the recovery of his own energy.
In the first part, there were more than 25 different species of animals, which, according to Politeski, forms a great basis for further development. “For example, we knew we wanted to fly a little bigger machine than Glinthawk, from which Sunwing came into being. But he also needed his place and role in the world, “points out the designer. As inspiration, they invited real flying reptiles and primitive birds to come up with the concept of wings that gather energy in sunny weather. However, according to the developers, this is not only a nice piece of design, but also an interesting game dynamics, which is based simply on the fact that during the recovery of its own energy, Sunwing will be vulnerable, but also more vigilant towards all potential predators. “Unique behavior becomes the basis of every species and is subsequently expanded as we define other models of behavior and the role of machines in the world. We always want to make sure that all species are interconnected and serve a higher purpose, ”adds Blake Politeski.
But as you probably already know, not all mechanical animals are automatically neutral to humans. Aloy has to face a number of them in direct combat, and for this purpose the developers have equipped her with an even larger number of possible weapons or ammunition. “Without wanting to reveal anything, each machine can be defeated in several ways. We tried to explain it to the players through the design of individual animals and we added textures that show weaknesses or interactive components, “says art director Maxim Fleury. In essence, it only encounters an innovated system from the first part, which, regardless of the emphasis, required a phase of learning about the enemy’s weaknesses, and it will be the same in Forbidden West. It is not just a matter of blasting components and finding vulnerabilities, but also of observing certain conditions during which the animal can approach and inflict a devastating blow on it. “For example, if a machine digs the ground and looks for raw materials, it generates a lot of dust – Aloy can use it as a screen to get closer,” Fleury explains.
It is important to add, however, that these animals are controlled by members of the enemy Tenakth tribe, so the duel with Tremortusk will probably always symbolize a clash with this separated faction.
The developers then left their own part of the blog to Tremortusk – one of the biggest animals Aloy will face. It is a mechanical equivalent of a mammoth, whose body is equipped with a number of weapons. Tremortusk can also fight in different ways and finding a pattern in his behavior will probably not be easy. After all, the developers openly say that Tremortuska is extremely difficult to defeat, so – we guess – there will not be many unnecessarily in the game. It is important to add, however, that these animals are controlled by members of the enemy Tenakth tribe, so the duel with Tremortusk will probably always symbolize a clash with this separated faction. Like her followers, however, Aloy will control the eyes of some of the animals and send against the others, which will hopefully be possible with this war mammoth.
