Horizon: Zero Dawn is an impressive game, both on a technical and visual level - but there are times when detail potentially gets in the way of fun gameplay, and that's apparently what happened with the title's dynamic storms. Speaking to the Official PlayStation Magazine, Guerrilla Games' Mathijs de Jonge reveals that random lightning strikes were a part of the game at one point - but they were deemed "unfair".
"We had some prototypes, for example, we had some lightning strikes that would randomly hit enemies or randomly hit the player," he explains. "But it just felt unfair because you have no control over it, it just naturally happens and suddenly you have a lot of damage. So we took that out in the end." We guess that's what happens when you're running around with a big old metal bow strapped to your back in the middle of a storm.
With or without bolts of lightning, the bottom line is that Horizon's weather system sounds pretty amazing. The game apparently renders its own clouds depending on factors like temperature and wind speeds, which is just ridiculous.
What do you make of random weather effects? Do you enjoy stuff like this in your open world games, or are you not bothered? Avoid bolts from above in the comments section below.
[source gamesradar.com]
Comments 23
should have left that in! sounds cool if it only happens once in a blue moon
Or they could have made it non-random?
Glad they took it out, sounds like something that makes sense in real life but doesn't translate well to gameplay. Like the summon mechanic in FFXV. I'm sure in development it made sense that God's would only come help you in need, and they would choose to help you, you can't just call whichever one you want, so logically it all makes sense, but when playing I prefer having fun to making sense, and it doesn't really work all that well.
So congrats to them for coming up with a cool sounding idea, being clever enough to get it to work, and smart enough to take it out. FFXV would be more fun if when we held down L2, after a visual guage filled up so we knew when we could use it, to summon we could assign the dpad to which one we want to call. Well at least right now I only have 4, I suppose more than that would be an issue, but that 5th 1 must be coming very very late in the game.
you can change the day or night cycle.which is really cool.you can change it anytime
Should of left it in. Could of made it so in the beginning it would hurt u, then maybe by some side quest u could get an item or piece of armor that would allow protection, maybe even channel the lightning into ur bow for a cool lighting attack. Robots are weak against lightning attack, right? 🤔
Could of also had some kind of trophy for getting struck by lightning so many times or so many enemies killed with a lightning powered attack. Imagine the possibilities! 😄
Why not leaving it in and nerf the damage? Sounds pretty cool to me...
Are you able to say when the review will go live guys? Cant wait to read your impressions of the game
Sound like the same thing Zelda breath of the wild is doing. I think they should of left it in and lower the damage
Imagining it just makes wonder why it got dropped, every problem has a solution.
Which is funny, because Zelda actually left in the dangerous lightning strikes.
As long as the player can take measures to avoid being struck during a storm (in Zelda, I believe, you can avoid getting hit by unequipping metal armor and equipment), I think it would have been a cool addition.
Either way, it's interesting that two big post-apocalyptic open world games with complex weather systems are both launching so close to one-another.
@Rob_230 All we can say is we'll have one before launch.
Sounds like it would have been a right pain, nothing worse then taking on a difficult boss and nearly beating him only for RNG to say "no". I don't think they would have been a way round it, especially when the game is pretty grounded so having a way to channel the lightening wouldn't have made sense in the context of the world.
Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening.
Shame really, would have been cool to have to get some uprgrade or something to stop it hitting, or they could have just had it for normal or hard mode.
@Ralizah lol I said the same thing. I wonder which Game between Zelda or horizon will be # 1 in april. I love to buy both but wallet won't let me lol.
@tonyp1987 Horizon is a new I.P., but it's being pushed hard, and to a much larger install base. Zelda is a huge established franchise, is also being pushed hard, and has the benefit of being the only major game available at launch for Nintendo's new platform, but the number of people who own a Wii U and/or a Switch simply won't be anywhere close to the number of people who own a PS4. The question is: of the huge number of people who own Sony's platform, how many actively buy big new first-party I.P.s, as opposed to just getting the yearly NBA2K, CoD, etc.?
I remember dodging lightning strike for venus sigil in final fantasy x ps2 a long time ago..
I would have preferred the random "god hates me" strikes.
@Ralizah true but how many people will hold off to play horizon looking for a price drop.
@ShogunRok brill, thanks!
@playstation1995 You can't, that's just the photo mode.
Should have added it with an ultra hard mode
@Punished_Boss_84 solution? You mean like removing the fog? 😉
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