Schlagwort: guerilla

With the launch of Horizon Forbidden West only a few days away, we are keen to share some of the accessibility features that will be available for our players. Early on in the game’s development, we established that we wanted to bring the game to as many fans as possible and create an immersive and accessible experience that can be enjoyed by everyone. Some of these return from Horizon Zero Dawn, and some are newly added as we’ve continued to learn and understand more about the needs of our players.

We hope these features help craft the gameplay experience that works best for you, and look forward to hearing your feedback so we can finetune even further!

General Accessibility Settings

There are a couple of things that are automatically enabled upon starting the game, one of them being subtitles. You also have the option to change the size and background used with subtitles for better visibility. You can select your preferred language (both spoken and subtitles) when starting the game for the first time.

In the game menu you can find the Notebook, an expansive encyclopedia containing useful information about characters, machines, and datapoints found in the world. We wanted to ensure that any help can easily be found while you are playing, should you need guidance, so we added a separate Tutorials section to study up on game mechanics or controls.

Difficulty Settings

We understand that every player wants their own type of challenge in the Forbidden West, so we have five difficulty settings that are tailored to give you the experience you prefer; from Story Mode which eases the combat experience so you can focus on exploration and story, to Very Hard which presents you with a tough, demanding combat experience and really tests your skills.

We’re also introducing the Custom Difficulty setting, which allows you to adjust damage levels that Aloy deals and receives to/from enemies, giving more flexibility in adjusting combat difficulty.

Horizon Forbidden West has a focus on hunting machines, then detaching and looting their resources to craft ammo and upgrade equipment. Many of these resources can be destroyed if not detached before the machine is killed. This can be challenging, so we have introduced an Easy Loot system. Turning the Easy Loot option on means that any resource components that are still attached when killing a machine are added to its loot inventory. This lessens the need to detach those components during combat. This system is the default for Story and Easy difficulties as well as an option in Custom mode.

Controller Settings

As Aloy is a skilled and agile hunter, it is important that the controls be as intuitive and comfortable to use, allowing Aloy to use her full range to succeed. With this in mind we have introduced a number of options to make these controls as accessible as possible.

Horizon Forbidden West has a few presets for controls (including left-handed support), but we also implemented fully remappable gameplay controls with guidance on any potential conflicts; meaning you can fully customize which button or input does what. There are also several options to swap between Toggle or Hold where applicable, invert the X or Y axis.

Another new feature is the Co-pilot system, which grants a second PlayStation controller with mirrored controls access to the game. This only requires another controller (DualSense controller for PS5, DualShock 4 controller for PS4) and a second user profile. The Co-pilot system was implemented thanks to incredible feedback and support from our sightless accessibility consultant.

Horizon Forbidden West also features optional motion sensor controls; using the DualSense wireless controller’s built-in accelerometer and gyroscope you can make intuitive micro-adjustments to aimed shots for that extra touch of precision.

There are sliders for the sensitivity of movement as well as Dead Zone settings for the analog sticks. You can also Quick Swap between weapons with one tap, and swap the functionality of the left and right sticks for character and camera movement.

As the PS5 version of the game makes use of the adaptive triggers and vibrations, we have introduced settings for players that find these options challenging: you can change the vibration intensity on cinematics, traversal, combat, UI, or the environment, and you can disable the adaptive triggers when wielding weapons.

Gameplay Assist Settings

These settings are aimed at supporting players who may experience difficulties with any aspect of the game.

When it comes to weapons and combat, you can, for example, adjust how much the game slows down when the Weapon Wheel (which allows you to quickly equip a weapon) is activated or enable Aim Assist. You can increase the duration of Concentration, which temporarily slows down time when you aim your bow, or even set Auto Concentration (if you have Concentration left) which saves you from having to activate it yourself in tricky combat situations.

Some other automatic settings to save you a button click are Auto Sprint, Auto Heal (when below 50% health), and Auto Shieldwing (which deploys when you fall from great heights, once this ability is unlocked). There’s also a setting called Climbing Annotations Always On, this makes the available climb options easier to see without requiring use of the Focus . Please note that some of the Auto settings only work in Story/Easy and Custom difficulty modes.

Horizon Forbidden West spans across a huge area, so we have implemented some guidance tools to help you navigate this vast and vibrant world. You can choose if you want to explore the world with minimal guidance, or if you’d like to see markers to help you reach your quest destination. The same goes for waypoints, which are dynamically placed markers to help navigate. For longer travels, you can select Mount Follows Road, so your mount will navigate you to your goal with minimal player input.

There are pop-up reminders on how to use abilities, weapons, or engage with certain enemies, which you can toggle on or off. If you boot up the game again after shutting down your console, there’s a Story So Far screen to help get back into the swing of things. While PS4 players might encounter the occasional loading screen (including helpful hints), PS5 players can toggle between Informative and Immediate, since the game loads a lot quicker and some might prefer to read the loading screen tips.

Audio and Visual Settings

There’s a couple of settings here that are specifically aimed at reducing any discomfort our players might experience. Visually, you can finetune the camera shake and motion blur settings, and completely customize the game’s HUD to control what information is visible to you, and when.

You can also decide on the size of the subtitles and toggle whether they are displayed on a background or not.

Audio-wise, there are individual volume controls for music, speech, and sound effects. You can also force Mono Audio, and you can remove Tinnitus sounds – these are triggering sounds (e.g. machine shrieks) which are similar to Tinnitus sounds.

In the PS5 version, there are also additional options to trim the volume of machine sounds, weapon and explosion sounds, or ambient sounds. This could be especially helpful for people who are easily overstimulated.

These are just some of the features we have included and we will continue to look at ways to make Horizon Forbidden West even more accessible, so we look forward to your feedback over the coming weeks! A big thanks to our accessibility advocates and playtesters, as well as our own Guerrillas and our colleagues across various PlayStation Studios for their invaluable support and input during development.

See you on February 18!

Website: LINK

With the launch of Horizon Forbidden West only a few days away, we are keen to share some of the accessibility features that will be available for our players. Early on in the game’s development, we established that we wanted to bring the game to as many fans as possible and create an immersive and accessible experience that can be enjoyed by everyone. Some of these return from Horizon Zero Dawn, and some are newly added as we’ve continued to learn and understand more about the needs of our players.

We hope these features help craft the gameplay experience that works best for you, and look forward to hearing your feedback so we can finetune even further!

General Accessibility Settings

There are a couple of things that are automatically enabled upon starting the game, one of them being subtitles. You also have the option to change the size and background used with subtitles for better visibility. You can select your preferred language (both spoken and subtitles) when starting the game for the first time.

In the game menu you can find the Notebook, an expansive encyclopedia containing useful information about characters, machines, and datapoints found in the world. We wanted to ensure that any help can easily be found while you are playing, should you need guidance, so we added a separate Tutorials section to study up on game mechanics or controls.

Difficulty Settings

We understand that every player wants their own type of challenge in the Forbidden West, so we have five difficulty settings that are tailored to give you the experience you prefer; from Story Mode which eases the combat experience so you can focus on exploration and story, to Very Hard which presents you with a tough, demanding combat experience and really tests your skills.

We’re also introducing the Custom Difficulty setting, which allows you to adjust damage levels that Aloy deals and receives to/from enemies, giving more flexibility in adjusting combat difficulty.

Horizon Forbidden West has a focus on hunting machines, then detaching and looting their resources to craft ammo and upgrade equipment. Many of these resources can be destroyed if not detached before the machine is killed. This can be challenging, so we have introduced an Easy Loot system. Turning the Easy Loot option on means that any resource components that are still attached when killing a machine are added to its loot inventory. This lessens the need to detach those components during combat. This system is the default for Story and Easy difficulties as well as an option in Custom mode.

Controller Settings

As Aloy is a skilled and agile hunter, it is important that the controls be as intuitive and comfortable to use, allowing Aloy to use her full range to succeed. With this in mind we have introduced a number of options to make these controls as accessible as possible.

Horizon Forbidden West has a few presets for controls (including left-handed support), but we also implemented fully remappable gameplay controls with guidance on any potential conflicts; meaning you can fully customize which button or input does what. There are also several options to swap between Toggle or Hold where applicable, invert the X or Y axis.

Another new feature is the Co-pilot system, which grants a second PlayStation controller with mirrored controls access to the game. This only requires another controller (DualSense controller for PS5, DualShock 4 controller for PS4) and a second user profile. The Co-pilot system was implemented thanks to incredible feedback and support from our sightless accessibility consultant.

Horizon Forbidden West also features optional motion sensor controls; using the DualSense wireless controller’s built-in accelerometer and gyroscope you can make intuitive micro-adjustments to aimed shots for that extra touch of precision.

There are sliders for the sensitivity of movement as well as Dead Zone settings for the analog sticks. You can also Quick Swap between weapons with one tap, and swap the functionality of the left and right sticks for character and camera movement.

As the PS5 version of the game makes use of the adaptive triggers and vibrations, we have introduced settings for players that find these options challenging: you can change the vibration intensity on cinematics, traversal, combat, UI, or the environment, and you can disable the adaptive triggers when wielding weapons.

Gameplay Assist Settings

These settings are aimed at supporting players who may experience difficulties with any aspect of the game.

When it comes to weapons and combat, you can, for example, adjust how much the game slows down when the Weapon Wheel (which allows you to quickly equip a weapon) is activated or enable Aim Assist. You can increase the duration of Concentration, which temporarily slows down time when you aim your bow, or even set Auto Concentration (if you have Concentration left) which saves you from having to activate it yourself in tricky combat situations.

Some other automatic settings to save you a button click are Auto Sprint, Auto Heal (when below 50% health), and Auto Shieldwing (which deploys when you fall from great heights, once this ability is unlocked). There’s also a setting called Climbing Annotations Always On, this makes the available climb options easier to see without requiring use of the Focus . Please note that some of the Auto settings only work in Story/Easy and Custom difficulty modes.

Horizon Forbidden West spans across a huge area, so we have implemented some guidance tools to help you navigate this vast and vibrant world. You can choose if you want to explore the world with minimal guidance, or if you’d like to see markers to help you reach your quest destination. The same goes for waypoints, which are dynamically placed markers to help navigate. For longer travels, you can select Mount Follows Road, so your mount will navigate you to your goal with minimal player input.

There are pop-up reminders on how to use abilities, weapons, or engage with certain enemies, which you can toggle on or off. If you boot up the game again after shutting down your console, there’s a Story So Far screen to help get back into the swing of things. While PS4 players might encounter the occasional loading screen (including helpful hints), PS5 players can toggle between Informative and Immediate, since the game loads a lot quicker and some might prefer to read the loading screen tips.

Audio and Visual Settings

There’s a couple of settings here that are specifically aimed at reducing any discomfort our players might experience. Visually, you can finetune the camera shake and motion blur settings, and completely customize the game’s HUD to control what information is visible to you, and when.

You can also decide on the size of the subtitles and toggle whether they are displayed on a background or not.

Audio-wise, there are individual volume controls for music, speech, and sound effects. You can also force Mono Audio, and you can remove Tinnitus sounds – these are triggering sounds (e.g. machine shrieks) which are similar to Tinnitus sounds.

In the PS5 version, there are also additional options to trim the volume of machine sounds, weapon and explosion sounds, or ambient sounds. This could be especially helpful for people who are easily overstimulated.

These are just some of the features we have included and we will continue to look at ways to make Horizon Forbidden West even more accessible, so we look forward to your feedback over the coming weeks! A big thanks to our accessibility advocates and playtesters, as well as our own Guerrillas and our colleagues across various PlayStation Studios for their invaluable support and input during development.

See you on February 18!

Website: LINK

The open world of Horizon Zero Dawn is a true playground for players. Gallop through the wilds on your trusty Charger to take in the lush environments and vibrant settlements. Embrace your inner hunter and sneak through bandit camps, taking down enemies silently and disable any means for them to call for back-up. Or climb to the highest mountains for gorgeous views and mysterious Old World secrets… 

Horizon Forbidden West, our upcoming sequel and continuation of Aloy’s action-packed adventure, is built on the same principles of player freedom; in fact, it was important to the team at Guerrilla to offer even more ways to explore and experience the world.

Spoiler Alert: Please note this article contains some spoilers for Horizon Zero Dawn and its storyline.

Travel through the Forbidden West

In the gameplay trailer, you’ll have seen Aloy using a variety of new tools in the Forbidden West. “Building upon the foundation of Horizon Zero Dawn, we have added a number of new ways to move through the world,” says David McMullen, Lead Systems Designer at Guerrilla. “Aloy can climb freely on and across huge sections of rocky terrain; even more machine types can be used as mounts; grapple points can be found throughout the environment which allows agile vertical traversal; swimming underwater has opened up a whole new aspect of exploration; and gliding with the Shieldwing provides the ultimate view of the beautiful world of Horizon Forbidden West – not to mention a quick way down from great heights!”

Captured on PS5

Before we dive deeper into some of these new mechanics, David will share some insights about the development process, the challenges that come with it, and why it was a goal for the team to increase the amount of player freedom throughout Aloy’s adventure. 

“Our traversal design decisions were always in service of increasing dynamic interactivity with the world around you. This could be to empower the player to manipulate and destroy their environment with a tool like the Pullcaster; or grapple-launching into a glide with the Shieldwing to set yourself up for a strike from above. What excites us most is how our mechanics, new and old, synergistically interact with each other to provide varied and dynamic approaches to any scenario.’ 

‘This wide array of new options also posed challenges to how we think about level design. We need to allow for players to outsmart us, using new moves or tools to bypass some of our challenges in clever and unpredictable ways. Traversal puzzles won’t always have a binary solution; we encourage players to experiment and have fun with the new tools. We will offer a variety of challenges, regardless of playstyle or skill or previous experience in Horizon Zero Dawn.”

And of course, the new features of the PlayStation 5 hardware presented another exciting challenge. While Horizon Forbidden West is developed and published for both PS4 and PS5 from the ground up, there are some highlights for those who will play on the latter console.

“The DualSense wireless controller is heavily featured throughout our mechanics,” David says. “From the scrape of rubble as you push a crate, to the sensation of an unravelling winch as you use the Pullcaster — with the increased adaptive trigger tension as you pull! We’ve also added extra tactile dimensions to increase both the gameplay value and the feeling of being part of the world Aloy is moving around in; these can be subtle as the sensation of grass brushing around you to indicate you are entering stealth grass, or the pop of the adaptive trigger as you reach maximum draw with a bow. We even use the absence of adaptive tension to help communicate when you’re out of ammo.”

Immersive exploration

Our Horizon community loves discovering new areas and climbing up high vantage points; to this day they share lots of images, videos, and memories of their adventures in-game! This level of immersive exploration was naturally something the team at Guerrilla took to heart during development of the sequel, David mentions.

“The free climbing system in Horizon Forbidden West is a huge feature we are extremely excited about, as it has allowed us to make large sections of the terrain climbable (where it makes sense visually and narratively) in a way not previously possible in Horizon Zero Dawn. Rocky surfaces in these areas are freely climbable without the use of tribal handholds!’

Captured on PS5

‘Another addition was the high vault traversal mechanic, which essentially allows Aloy to hoist herself on top of any object of jumpable height with room to pull up. Combined with the ability to free climb and adding grapples to our environment, the potential for exploration is greatly increased.”

Two other reveals from the Horizon Forbidden West gameplay trailer that have fans – and Guerrillas  – very excited are the previously mentioned Pullcaster and Shieldwing: new tools at Aloy’s disposal to make her more agile during both exploration and the inevitable battles she’ll be fighting in the West.

“The Pullcaster is a mechanical wrist-mounted device with two separate functions,” David explains. “The first function is a grapple mechanic, allowing the player to swiftly and easily ascend the environment and providing a dynamic traversal/escape option to the player toolkit. When grappling, the player can activate the launch — throwing them into the air, where they can grab a higher ledge, fire their bow, glide, strike-from-above or even grapple to a further point.’ 

‘The second function of the Pullcaster is a winch, meaning the player can dynamically manipulate, move and destroy the objects in the environments. Think about pulling a hidden loot chest from a ledge, or tearing open a vent to create a new climb path.”

“The Shieldwing was always a team favorite, it provides not only the most exhilarating way to return from an epic climb but also the most picturesque! This tool is invaluable with having so much more verticality, where backtracking down the same trail holds less of an appeal as on the way up.’

‘Hopefully players appreciate this level of freedom, as well as new gameplay, combat and exploration opportunities. The Shieldwing combines well with numerous other mechanics both in and out of combat, such as landing on your mount, ziplining, the strike from above skill, and more…”

A majestic but dangerous frontier

While exploration and traversing around the world all sound idyllic, the Forbidden West is also full of danger, with many unknown enemies and a roster of new machines for Aloy to deal with. It’s imperative to have the right weapons, ammunition, and skills available for when you stumble upon an enemy base, or an angry Tremortusk… 

As with traversal, it was similarly important to evolve combat design further from Horizon Zero Dawn, and build on the principles of player freedom and choice in an open world. With new combat mechanics, enemy types, and weapon variation (to name a few aspects), players can easily assess a dangerous situation and choose how to enter a combat scenario – then actively swap between combat tactics.

Guerrilla’s Lead Combat Designer, Dennis Zopfi, shares how the team expanded its key features in Horizon Forbidden West. “One of the focus points that influenced all our combat decisions was increased player choice, and we applied this to everything: melee, weapons, outfits, skills and other new mechanics. We wanted to give players more tools, depth and dials to play with.’

‘One entirely new concept in Horizon Forbidden West is the workbench, where you can upgrade and strengthen weapons and outfits. This unlocks new perks, mod slots, skills, and offers a bigger degree of customization, resistances, and new abilities for players!”

Another way to upgrade Aloy’s abilities is through the skill tree. “In Horizon Zero Dawn, skills were bought and unlocked as you levelled up,” Dennis explains. “While that principle remains in the sequel, we completely redesigned the skill tree with additional tracks and skills; within the skill tree, skills also synergize with those that are either already present on outfits or need to be unlocked on them.”

If you read our previous blog on Aloy , you’ll have learned about how character development has multiple teams involved; the Combat team also plays a huge role in her evolution. 

Dennis agrees: “We always start with the character and how we want the player to perceive her during gameplay. In Aloy’s case this means traits like smart, fast, agile, precise, and resourceful; our role is to translate these into game mechanics. Of course having launched Horizon Zero Dawn already, we had a base to start from, so for Horizon Forbidden West we looked at where these traits can come through stronger or maybe what could be added. There are the direct combat mechanics, like shooting and melee, but also indirect ones, like the skills, outfits, upgrades, and weapon techniques. It is a nice design challenge to make all these behind the scenes systems work together in the engine.”

New weapons and tools

And it’s not just Aloy who’s evolved since Horizon Zero Dawn. The Forbidden West is a majestic yet dangerous frontier with many mysterious threats that Aloy might encounter. This creates an additional goal for Dennis and the teams to make sure she has the right weapons and tools available to handle these battles.

“We wanted to bring melee and ranged combat closer together,” says Dennis. “Aloy is not a character who deals with brute force, so we were looking for ways to have the player go back and forth between melee and range, where she could use her precise bow skills to work towards a big payoff moment. A new example of a skill that does this is the Resonator Blast, where you charge up the spear with melee hits and when fully powered up, the energy can be placed on enemies (humans and machines alike) and followed up with a projectile – resulting in a big damaging explosion!’

‘Then there is the Valor Surge feature; there are 12 in total, with each of them representing and strengthening a specific approach to the game. You unlock and upgrade them through the skill tree with skill points. There are three levels of each Valor Surge: the higher the level, the longer the charge up, but the more powerful the attack.’

“This level is shown on the purple bar you could see during the gameplay trailer: you’ll receive more Valor – or charge up that bar – through skillful actions such as hitting weak spots on enemies or removing components. In the video you could see Aloy perform the Radial Blast on the burly Tenakth warrior. ’

“It was also important to reward players who go into a melee situation, as it’s very dangerous to be so close to enemies, especially the machines! If you are skilled and daring, you can do some really good damage with these new features – just be careful!”

Aside from these encounters, there’s another level of combat skill needed now that some enemy factions can mount machines. Players will have to keep a close eye on both the enemy mount and its rider, according to Dennis.

“In Horizon Zero Dawn, machine and humanoid encounters were very separate; they never really operated as a group against Aloy. The world has changed in Horizon Forbidden West, with more danger, more enemy factions, and more machines – and they can now fight together in groups, which poses a real challenge for our hero, and the player.’

“When it comes to mounted combat, the player will have to adapt and decide whom to take out first and in what most effective way; human enemies have weapons, attacks, and abilities that machines don’t and vice versa, so they complement each other in these encounters; keeping you on your toes!”

In the gameplay trailer, Aloy has a host of new weapons at her disposal. Familiar weapons like the Hunter Bow, Sharpshot Bow, and the Blast Sling will of course return, but there are plenty of new weapons to try out too.

“The goal for the weapons in Horizon Forbidden West was to give each of them a stronger personality, which is also expressed in how you have to handle them,” Dennis smiles. “Each weapon has their strengths and weaknesses in terms of the ideal situations to use them in.’

“The Spike Thrower, for example, is a new, high damage weapon which, when thrown at the right moment, makes it easier to hit larger targets. For elemental damage, such as fire or adhesive, you can choose to stick with the Blast Sling, and so forth. Each weapon comes with different perks, ammo types, and weapon coil slots to customize them further — though some weapons need to be upgraded first before you can make them stronger.”

More freedom and dynamic gameplay

As both David and Dennis have demonstrated, increased player freedom and player choice was absolutely at the heart of Horizon Forbidden West’s development cycle:

“There’s a number of other subtle yet impactful additions that enable more dynamic gameplay,” summarizes David. “Just to name a few examples: Aloy can wall jump, leap away from a climb surface, high vault, and more. While these might sound like small things, combined they make for engaging environmental challenges and more player options.”

Dennis attests to that: “We put a lot of effort into creating more choice and depth for the players, and are super excited to see how people will play as Aloy with so many new possibilities of skills, weapons and gear she can obtain throughout the mysterious Forbidden West. We had a lot of fun creating cool and powerful combinations for players to discover, and we hope people will enjoy the game when it launches!”

For more information on Horizon Forbidden West, please visit here. See you soon for our next developer blog.

Read more about Horizon Forbidden West

Website: LINK

Last week, we finally got our first proper look at what awaits us – and Aloy – in Horizon Forbidden West. Guerrilla tantalised us with new gameplay mechanics to master, new Machines to overcome and new locations to explore. And accompanying that visual showcase was the alluring yet all-too short debut of some of the game’s soundtrack. Today, we get to linger on that score. 

Firstly, the chance to absorb four tracks from that State of Play demo in isolation, forming The Isle of Spires EP that’s just released onto streaming services – listen to it here. 

Secondly, we’re excited to reveal the composers behind the music of Horizon Forbidden West. Joris de Man, Niels van de Leest and composing duo The Flight all return from Horizon Zero Dawn, and are joined on the sequel by Oleksa Lozowchuk. 

To mark the EP’s release, and share the first details of what players should expect from them for Horizon Forbidden West, we brought the composers and Guerrilla Music Supervisor Lucas Van Tol together for a roundtable discussion. That wide-ranging chat tackles amongst other things, the challenges of building upon what went before, deciding who worked on what (“we have a lot more music than in Horizon Zero Dawn,” Van Tol explains of the necessity) and individual approaches to composing (fun fact: one composer builds their own instruments). But first, introductions:

Play Video

Getting the band back together 

Consideration for the sequel’s music began “since the moment we knew there would be [one],” jokes Van Tol. 

Guerrilla’s Music Supervisor is credited not only with defining which aspects of Horizon Forbidden West’s music each of the four composers would work on but keeping track of everything. Creating the sequel’s open world soundscape – covering but not limited to tribes, characters, enemies, locations, cues – as well as evolving it from what came before was understandably a herculean undertaking. It made sense to split and divide. Van Tol played both ringmaster and conductor, briefing and guiding the group throughout production. He also wanted a different approach to the game’s score. ”In Horizon Zero Dawn our initial focus was on locations,” he explains. “This time around we wanted to follow the story a lot more closely and create a more fluent and emotional experience, also outside of the cutscenes.”

That previous collaboration helped the studio decide the best way forward. The Flight’s Alexis Smith notes that Van Tol gained valuable insight as to each composer’s sounds and strengths: “He usually has a pretty good view on which parts he wants us to compose.” So Joris de Man worked on emotional cues “that weren’t specifically linked to an area”, while as with the original, Niels van der Leest handled percussive music for specific events like hunting and music for every tribal region in the game. There were exceptions: character arcs, including key cinematics and quests were wholly owned by a single composer, ensuring thematic continuity. 

Oleksa Lozowchuk’s remit was more extensive, covering “all types.” “That really helped me develop a stronger sense of how the different types of music dovetailed with each other, weaving in and out through the game arc.” By all accounts, he had an ear for this world from the start. Lozowchuk, an industry veteran who worked at Capcom Vancouver for over seven years, joined the composing roster after impressing the team with his audition pieces. 

That said, he kept checking the other composers’ work periodically to make sure there was cohesion. As did the rest; stationed as they are in different countries around the world, group calls and a shared cloud drive were the quickest ways to check in. These offered guidance, and during enforced breaks due to Covid (“we just moved our rigs home and carried on from there,” remembers Alexis) a chance to connect with peers. Sharing also led to unexpected collaborations. “The Flight ended up reusing and remixing my vocal assets from one of the 9-part choral pieces I wrote for one of the game’s tribes,” remembers Oleksa. “They used it in their own way to flesh out another scene in an entirely different context of the game.” 

Meet the musicians behind Horizon Forbidden West. From left to right: composer duo The Flight (Alexis Smith, Joe Henson), Guerrilla Audio Lead Bastian Seelbach, Guerrilla Music Supervisor Lucas Van Tol, and composers Oleksa Lozowchuk, Niels van der Leest and Joris de Man. 

Familiar themes

Lozowchuk first fully immersed himself in the original’s soundtrack to get into the mindset of Aloy’s world, then set out to “compliment and contour” what had come before, building variations and fragments of previous themes, while also creating new emotional beats for players. He wasn’t alone. The Flight loaded up original recording sessions to remind themselves of the process, while Joris de Man looked back on his own pieces to “figure out what made those tracks work”. 

All tease that we’ll hear returning themes from the original. Aloy’s Theme is one, “albeit adapted to the new game,” confirms de Man. With that track capturing Aloy’s growing confidence over the course of the first game, how can they evolve further yet retain that familiar resonance? “That’s probably one of the most interesting aspects of [this sequel] for me,” he responds. 

For him and the other returning composers, they were eager to find new additions to layer onto a world the musical DNA of which they defined. “We were aware this was new sonic territory, it couldn’t be retread of the previous game,” de Man admits of the challenge ahead. 

They all looked to both the real world and Aloy’s for inspiration. “You read up on the backstory of the part of Horizon Forbidden West’s world you’re working on,” van der Leest outlines as his way back in. “Try and find similarities with our own (musical) history and then distil from that to create something new.” Oleksa feels the team has found a great balance of interweaving returning music and new score. “You never want to alienate those who love the first game, but want to give them plenty to explore and journey through for the sequel.” 

Finding the new sound

Was anything off limits, or felt ill-fitting for the game’s sonic palette? Once again, all point to Lucas Van Tol keeping everyone on the right track. “He could give us feedback when we submitted pieces, such as ‘don’t use this instrument, as that’s linked to this tribe’,” outlines de Man. “‘Use some of these textures or listen to what one of the other composers has done to get the right vibe for this area’.” 

The composer elaborates further. “The key focus was to come up with organic textures and sounds, that fit the aesthetic of the Horizon Forbidden West game world, whilst upgrading it from the sound that Horizon Zero Dawn was based on; that means that there’s a bit more synthesizer work and synthetic textures complementing the organic tones than there was in the previous game.” For van der Leest, he always keeps our protagonist in mind. “The key theme for me was to always see the world through the eyes of Aloy. She is once again set with a difficult task which influences the way she looks at the world around her.” 

One interesting fact pops up off the back of the question: alongside tracking down little-known instruments and researching which would fit each tribe, Niels van der Leest further immersed himself in Aloy’s world by building his own. ”The people in that world don’t have any recollection of our society,” he reasons. “As such they are creating their instruments from scratch and in many cases unlike anything from what you’ve seen in our world.” 

Everyone’s creative process is different. Joris de Man noodles with a piano or tries some unique tricks, such as a plectrum on a violin with paper stuck between the strings (“why not?”). He talks of his palette being more grittier and raw this time round, a style to reflect the Forbidden West, “a more dangerous area with more uncertainty ahead”.  

Van der Leest takes a ‘day off’ from the studio and his keyboard to ensure a clean slate before starting to track a new region. The Flight cover their workspace in visuals of their subject matter to inspire experimentation. Oleksa rattles off an eye-widening list of instruments, including organic sources, indigenous percussion instruments and synthetic sources that he’s using to build his corner of the world. “I try to listen to the ebb and flow of energy that passes through all the melodies, harmonies and textures at different listening levels, making sure it still keeps my attention until I simply hit a point of saturation. Once I’ve heard enough to release it I can move on.”  

A soundtrack unlike any other

“One of the things I’m proud of that the composing team achieved on Horizon Zero Dawn was that the music seemed to be a natural fit – people listened to it and thought ‘of course it’s supposed to sound like that, this feels like a natural part of Horizon’s world’,” says Joris de Man about their success in forging a distinct soundscape back in 2017. Van der Leest is equally emphatic. “This was one of the most exciting parts of creating the music. Creating a sound that somehow sounded familiar but one you couldn’t necessarily put your finger on. Sure there are instruments that you’d recognize, but the combination with other more unworldly instruments and electronics made them sound new and fresh.” 

For the original game, the approach was to create a soundtrack unlike anything players had heard before. The composers have kept that in mind for the sequel. “Same vein, but different,” Alexis intriguingly says of the throughline between original and this latest work. Oleksa calls the results “sonic alchemy”. “On this project, I got human voices to create non-human sounds and acoustic instruments to approximate human voices and phrasing.” All have been invigorated at the chance to step back into this world and grow its soundscape. Niels van der Leest sums it up best: “Horizon Forbidden West is a special project as it challenges you to think outside of the box the whole time. Making the music for this game is a unique experience.” 

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