Horizon Zero Dawn: RPG titles need to be 'disciplined'

The team behind Horizon Zero Dawn have never made an action role-playing game before.

Producer Sam Sharma says putting it together was "incredibly challenging, but also very satisfying".

As technology has developed, RPG (role-playing game) titles have become much bigger, now regularly offering players hundreds of hours worth of content.

But Sam thinks that's not always a good thing and hopes his team's discipline will make their effort a success.

"We wanted a focused experience that makes people think they're part of this living breathing world, but not feel like they're doing busy work," he says.

Sam says having a female lead character was not a 'conscious decision'

Known for the shooter franchise Killzone, developers Guerilla Games have stepped out of their comfort zone to make the PlayStation 4 exclusive.

But they're not throwing away lessons they've learned before.

"It comes with discipline, knowing what we're trying to make," Sam explains.

"Yes you can cram in lots of things, make the world incredibly huge, but not if it distracts from the main story or what helps you explore it."

That's not to say this title will be wildly different in size to other popular franchises in the genre like The Witcher, Mass Effect or Dark Souls.

The game is just as vast as similar titles in the action RPG genre but Sam says they've tried to create a 'focused' experience

"There's a main quest through line you can follow," says Sam.

"There are a whole host of side quests, characters to meet, areas to explore and things to learn about the game's back story.

"But we didn't want the player to just do busy work, going and collecting stuff or whatever.

"We wanted activities to explore the world, understand the lore, and uncover the mystery of what happened.

"That's the central tenet of the story."

Horizon is what Sam likes to describe as, "a post, post-apocalyptic, third-person, action role-playing game.

The game follows the archer Aloy as she travels a post post-apocalyptic land ruled by machines

"What we mean is the apocalypse has happened and humanity has started clawing its way back."

He tells us the team chose to branch out into a new genre because it was a challenge.

"At times we've looked at ourselves and said, 'What have we taken on?'" he says.

"But there's never been a moment of doubt because it's been so exciting."

Horizon Zero Dawn is a PlayStation 4 exclusive

When the game was first announced at Sony's E3 press conference in 2015 many picked up on the developers decision to have a female lead character.

But Sam says it was never something they really considered.

"The pitch was always this lush open world with machines roaming the wild and a little girl in the middle of it.

"This is the story of who she is, this is what we always wanted to make and we've not questioned it."

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