Gaming Brew: A Horizon Zero Dawn Sequel Is Coming!
Guerrilla Games, the Amsterdam-based game developer has made some pretty spectacular stuff over the years. While they’re most well-known for the long-running Killzone franchise, perhaps their most spectacular work is Horizon Zero Dawn.
The developer recently put up a job listing asking for a “Technical Vegetation Artist”, and the posting goes on to specifically reference HZD. The verbiage itself states,
“Within Guerrilla, we have four teams dedicated to creating the stunning environments of Horizon. One team focuses on the creation of lush and stunning vegetation. We build these 3D models from scratch, so our world dressing teams can deliver our immersive world with industry-benchmark graphics.”
While not an official sequel confirmation, it’s basically the developer acknowledging that they’re working on one. It’s also not the only allusion to a second Horizon Zero Dawn title we’ve gotten since the original game dropped…
First, those of us who played through to the end of the first game know about the final cutscene. Yes, that one. The one that plays after the credits, which (if you were paying attention) showed us the potential and likelihood for a new villain to rise against Aloy. A villain whom I’m frankly excited to see come into their own. While the core game itself didn’t really have a central antagonist to speak of (the mechanized dinosaurs gave us enough to worry about), I would say that any continuation of the story could really benefit from having a more human element to its baddie. That’s where we here at PCU feel that the implication of that final scene could come into play for a sequel.
Second, there was a comment made by one of the game’s cast, during a Star Wars Celebration livestream back in April. On the stream, Janina Gavankar (who voiced Tataj in the Frozen Wilds DLC) told a fan, “Just wait until you see the sequel. You’re gonna die. I know some secrets, you’re gonna die.” Now, when a cast member of a thing mentions a sequel to that thing, you can usually be pretty sure that thing is coming.
Finally, you may have seen a VentureBeats interview with Angie Smets (an executive producer at Guerrilla Games) back in July of 2018. When asked about the “extra ending” (that we referenced above), she replied, “I can’t really talk about what’s next, but we obviously didn’t invest seven years into creating this big, rich world and all of the technology for nothing? I hope everyone is super excited for the future.”
If you got into the game as much as we here at PCU did, it’s clear that more of Aloy’s story needs to be told. We’d love to see her journey to different parts of the world, uniting more and more tribes against the HADES AI. I mean, the regeneration couldn’t have been confined to just one portion of the world, right? What about her life with her own tribe? Could she potentially assume the role of Chieftain? What about becoming a mother and raising a family of fiery hunters like herself? There’s so much to look forward to! After all, Aloy is one of our favorite badasses.
The truly amazing thing about Horizon Zero Dawn, is clearly the story that it tells. A story that spans so much time, yet it’s told in such a concise and colorful way. Still, the first game (and the DLC) left us with some questions about how this anachronistic world came to be, and about what other secrets could lie under its mountains.
Since its 2017 debut on the PS4, Horizon Zero Dawn has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. Having played the game (and gotten 100% completion on it), it’s easy to see why gamers love it so much. It’s also easy to see how a sequel could be a huge hit, given how good the first one was. Even more exciting, is this: Since the PS5 is slated for release late in 2020, a Horizon Zero Dawn sequel could the perfect game to test the strengths of the new console. Still, we’re not sure whether the game is being developed for a current or next-gen system. However, it’s a good bet that the game will again be a PlayStation exclusive, since Sony has owned Guerrilla Games since 2005.
Sufficed to say, we’re pretty psyched! Let us know your thoughts too, dear readers! Are you as excited by the news of a potential Horizon Zero Dawn sequel as we are? What would you like to see happen in a second chapter?
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