New information on the Horizon Zero Dawn release date delay is out this week, via a GameSpot interview with game director Mathijs de Jonge, and it sounds like the reason we’re waiting a few extra months for the highly anticipated PS4 exclusive is just a simple need for more polish.
There’s been no shortage of excitement for Horizon Zero Dawn since the game was announced last year. It’s the first new IP from Guerrilla Games in more than a decade, one of the few AAA titles to star a female protagonist and uses a drastically different setting than we’ve come to expect from modern open-world games. Of course, while Horizon Zero Dawn was originally announced as a 2016 release, Sony recently confirmed HZD won’t hit stores until early next year. Many fans were understandably disappointed but the game’s director says fans’ patience will be rewarded.
“We have this open world. It's very big. We have a lot of quests; we have a lot of different regions as well. We have a lot of different Machines,” de Jonge told GameSpot. “Just playtesting this, it's very, very time-consuming. We have so many components. We just want to raise the quality”
The game director says Guerrilla is also using that time to continue improving the backstory and motivations of the HZD’s protagonist, Aloy. It was important to the studio that gender of Horizon Zero Dawn’s protagonist not be changed, despite concerns from Shuhei Yoshida . But de Jonge says the team doesn’t want Aloy’s entire story/motivation to center around her gender. What’s most important, at the end of the day, is that Horizon Zero Dawn’s protagonist is “really interesting” and that Aloy can fill players with the same curiosity and determination that drives her.
Sadly, now that E3 2016 has come and gone, we’ll probably have to wait until a few more months before Guerrilla Games gives the general public another look at Horizon Zero Dawn. In the interim, we’d suggest taking a few minutes to review last week’s HZD gameplay (embedded at the top of the post) for a closer look at Horizon Zero Dawn while you wait for the game’s 2017 debut.
Horizon Zero Dawn is in development exclusively for PlayStation 4. The game is scheduled to debut February 28, 2017.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com and follow Scott on Twitter for more Horizon Zero Dawn news throughout 2016 and as long as Guerrilla supports Horizon Zero Dawn after launch.
