Horizon Zero Dawn is an action role-playing video game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation 4 and released in early 2017.
The plot revolves around Aloy, a hunter, and archer living in a world overrun by robots. Having been an outcast her whole life, she sets out to discover the dangers that kept her sheltered.
The character uses ranged weapons and a spear and stealth tactics to combat the mechanized 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, divided into tribes that hold side quests to undertake, while the main story guides her across the entire map.
The concept explores the contrast between the beauty and danger of the game’s setting. Guerrilla Games emphasizes trial and error as the basis for playing the game. The game engine, Decima, was previously engineered for Killzone Shadow Fall and altered for Horizon Zero Dawn.
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 was the best-selling launch of an original IP on the PlayStation 4 console and, as of June 2017, had sold 3.4 million copies, making it the second best-selling PlayStation 4 video game.
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