Documentary on Horizon Zero Dawn Production

VPRO published a wonderful video, which documents the production of Guerrilla Games new open world hit.

Another day – another Horizon story. We can’t help ourselves since it’s obviously one of the most technically advanced games of the modern generation. So Dutch organization VPRO actually recorded a nice 47-minute story, which tells the story of the development process. The documentary is part Dutch, part English, but you can definitely enjoy it since there are nice subtitles added.

This documentary is actually very interesting, as it goes into the production, showing how the team at Guerrilla Games trick the gamers and use some well-known tech (like tree sprites in the background, for example) to create a powerful modern look (needless to say there’s a lot of cutting edge tech in this game as well). And it also shows a wonderful office of Guerrilla in Amsterdam. And they show that crazy motion capture setup they have. Nice stuff.

Personally, I really like the way Guerrilla Games treats the game. When the journalist asked  Jan-Bart van Beek (JB) about the size of the world, he refused to give a number: “We never say that, because it will destroy the illusion. The illusion that it is very big. If people knew how big it really was, they’d be disappointed. It’s better to let them experience the world than to define it in figures”.

It’s just lovely that they don’t forget about that beautiful illusion that games create for us. It’s not about just numbers, it’s just about the general experience, about the mood and feel.

PS.

Funny enough this charming video has already sparked a controversy. Kotaku published a nice GIF, showing Frustrum culling working in Horizon Zero Dawn and game developers started mocking the journalists. Strange to see this kind of reaction, especially since Kotaku is not a gamedev website. In case you are wondering here’s an amazing article about the way culling works.

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