Guerrilla Games was once known for making first-person shooters. It was surprising to hear that they would be creating an open-world RPG. While the end result is absolutely stunning and even considered one of the best games in the genre, Horizon Zero Dawn developers open up about just how daunting the task was. Technical Director Michiel van der Leeuw gave a candid interview to EDGE in which he expressed just what the team was feeling:

We were pretty scared, but it was even more scary to do a generation switch and a genre switch at the same time.”

The Horizon Zero Dawn developers had a fairly large task ahead of them, completely switching gears from a linear to non-linear style with only the experimentation of Shadow Fall’s development as a leaping point. Armed with the Decima Engine and feeding game-specific features into it, the team began their journey, but still had doubts:

We were mainly just afraid of what was going to happen next. Open world streaming was much more challenging than the linear things we were used to, even though we experimented with non-linearity in Shadow Fall. We had no idea how to script an open world. In non linear worlds, you can pick up a quest and wander off and do something else, and we had no idea how the scripting would deal with the complexities of the logic that required.”

Ultimately, the Horizon Zero Dawn developers pushed through and delivered an incredible title. In spite of odds and uncertainty, HZD would go on to become a major success. Now, Guerrilla Games has an interesting future ahead of them in the open-world RPG industry.

Since release, the game has gone on to sell millions of copies, win awards like the BAFTA Best Original Game among many others, and earning even more in numbers of nominations. What Guerrilla Games will try next is anyone’s guess, but it will likely be interesting and amazing.

Horizon Zero Dawn is available exclusively for the PlayStation 4. How did the Horizon Zero Dawn devs do overall? Join in on the conversation in the comment section below! Don’t forget to follow DFTG on Twitter for live gaming and entertainment news 24/7!