Developer(s)Guerrilla Games

Publisher(s)Sony Interactive Entertainment

Director(s)Mathijs de Jonge

Producer(s)Lambert Wolterbeek Muller

Programmer(s)Michiel van der Leeuw

Artist(s)Jan-Bart van Beek

Writer(s)

• John Gonzalez

• Ben McCaw

Composer(s)

• Joris de Man

• The Flight

• Niels van der Leest

• Jonathan Williams

EngineDecima

Platform(s)PlayStation 4

Release

• NA: 28 February 2017

• PAL: 1 March 2017

Genre(s)Action role-playing

Mode(s)Single-player

Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing video game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The plot revolves around Aloy, a hunter and archer living in a world overrun by machines. Having been an outcast her whole life, she sets out to discover the dangers that kept her sheltered. The player uses ranged weapons and a spear and stealth tactics to combat the mechanised creatures, whose remains can be looted for resources. A skill tree provides the player with new abilities and passive bonuses. The game features an open world environment for Aloy to explore, while undertaking side and main story quests. It was released for the PlayStation 4 in early 2017.

Development began in 2011 after the studio completed production of Killzone 3, with game director Mathijs de Jonge considering it "the most risky" idea of those that were pitched at the time. The concept explores the contrast between the beauty and danger of the game's setting. The game engine, Decima, was previously engineered for Killzone Shadow Fall and altered for Horizon Zero Dawn. Anthropologists were consulted to authenticate the world's decay over a millennium. The game is the first new intellectual property (IP) developed by Guerrilla Games since Killzone in 2004, and also the studio's first attempt at developing a role-playing video game. The soundtrack, led by Joris de Man, contains experimental instrumentation to distinguish the themes.

Horizon Zero Dawn won the award for Best Original Game at the Game Critics Awards in 2015 and 2016. At release, it was well received by critics, who praised the open world, story, visuals, combat, the character of Aloy and the performance provided by her voice actress Ashly Burch, whilst giving criticism to the dialogue, melee combat and character models. It is the best-selling launch of an original IP on the PlayStation 4 console, selling over seven million copies by February 2018, which ranks it among the best-selling PlayStation 4 games. An expansion pack, The Frozen Wilds, was released on 7 November 2017