Horizon Forbidden West – Master Aloy’s New Abilities

The latest developer blog for Guerrilla Games’ upcoming open world RPG Horizon Forbidden West is dedicated to the game’s new traversal and survival mechanics. By the looks of it, the second game in the Horizon series will allow you to climb all over the place, swim underwater, utilize an assortment of new gadgets, and use a fresh array of skills when fighting your enemies.

The article is sprinkled with screenshots and animation samples, so be sure to check it out. Here’s an excerpt to get you started:

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.”