Guerilla Games’ post apocalyptic future title Horizon Zero Dawn will allow players to capture wild robots and use them in a variety of ways. Despite this, it will apparently not allow people to build an army of robotic dinosaurs to conquer the world.
The machines will have to be immobilised before protagonist Aloy is able to deploy her override stick and rep-programme them to help her. Some of these machines will serve as mounts, while others will simply fight alongside her against their former comrades.
The demo at the PlayStation booth in the Tokyo Game Show had two machines available for capture. One was the bipedal raptor-like Watcher, while the other was a robotic moose creature known as a Long-Rack. The Long-Rack functions as a mount after being overridden, while the Watcher will return to its patrol path and instead guard the player.
According to Gonzales, almost all machines can be overridden. This includes the giant Thunderjaw, which happens to be a T-Rex with rocket launchers and lasers. Of course, the programming for the combat robots is only temporary; although mounts become permanent allies. Until they die horribly, like all good video game mounts.
Two other creatures shown during the press presentation were a deer robot with an unknown name, and the Shell-Walker – a strange crab machine that carries a loot chest on its back. Guerilla Games lead writer John Gonzales refused to comment on whether the Shell-Walker could be overridden to function as a walking stash.
Horizon Zero Dawn is schedule to be released for the PlayStation 4 on 28 February 2017.
