Joel Eschler, Senior Producer at Guerrilla Games, told Stevivor that Horizon: Zero Dawn has been designed to cater to stealth or action playstyles “at any given moment”.
“We focus tested this game and did play test for the longest time,” he said after I confessed I thought I was playing incorrectly, placing an emphasis on stealth.
“I don’t think you can necessarily say there’s a wrong way to play but there are definitely particular skills in the skill tree which help replace stealth or health with trying to go in a more action kind of way.
“It depends how you want to try and take these things down ’cause there are definitely plenty of opportunities where you can get by without having to take anyone out. Or, you can take your immediate threat out and others don’t get a word in.
“We try to basically provide anyone’s play style at any given moment to work,” he summarised. “But definitely, you can min-max Aloy to your playstyle and also to give your modifications on your weapons and all of these kinds of stuff. I don’t think we designed it in such a way that if you go too far down a particular skill tree that you have to stick that way. You can always adapt back.
“We also try to make the enemies so that, even when you are at a higher level, [initial] enemies like the Watchers can still be a threat as well. I don’t think at any point in the game you can really feel safe when you have a pack of enemies attacking you, which was a conscious decision for us.”
Players will be able to test if wholly stealth or action playthroughs are feasible when Horizon: Zero Dawn heads to the PS4 on 1 March.
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