Horizon Forbidden West recently won Best Game at Devlop:Brighton despite it being pretty early in the year, so we know the game did something right. It follows a young woman named Aloy who has ventured West to save the world. Taking place 1,000 years in the future, the world is almost unrecognizable, but remnants of our current civilization are sprinkled throughout. In a recent interview with Bo de Vries, the community lead at Guerilla Games, Guerilla Quest Designer discussed using Las Vegas in The Sea of Sands Quest. In the same interview, she went into detail about designing an underwater quest, and talked a bit more about the main obstacles in creating something so unique.
SPOILER ALERT: This article shares details and spoilers for The Sea of Sands quest.
Horizon Forbidden West had the unique opportunity to introduce the first underwater quest in the franchise. Never before had Aloy been able to dive and swim. This presented the designers with a unique challenge to overcome: water. Schoonen explained that creating the underwater environment took a lot of collaboration with multiple teams. Dunehollow, the future subterranean underwater remnants of Las Vegas, is a very big space teeming with machine monsters. The designers had to know where the water and air pockets were. They also had to adjust visibility settings, so that places to hide and entryways were not completely hidden but would take some work to find. Doing all of this required working closely with the tech, visual effects, and lighting teams.
Schoonen also brought up that one of the most important design aspects of the quest was the swimming mechanics. Because this was the first time Alloy ever had to swim, Core Systems Designer Lennart Hoting had to tackle both swimming and diving in the game. He said that instead of that typical oppressive tone of swimming underwater that freaks some gamers out, he wanted to work on fast and agile movement. That and the use of the diving mask were ways to make this quest more enjoyable for all players. To add some tension though, players would have to be stealthy as they moved through the Vegas ruins because Aloy has no way to fight while she swims. Hoting says that’s why smoke bombs and the clumps of kelp come in handy. Players can hide from the numerous predators that move in guard-like rotations.
Speaking of the predators, there are plenty of mechanic monsters to encounter in this quest. The biggest of which is the Tideripper, an amphibious dinosaur-like machine. As Aloy enters the casino to begin this quest, the very first thing she encounters is the Tideripper swimming past. This was done on purpose to show the scale of how large the environment is. Aloy spends most of the quest simply avoiding the beast while she searches for Poseidon, the tech she needs for her mission to save the world. However, once she finds Poseidon, the water drains and creates a sort of arena. From a pocket of water still remaining, the amphibious Tideripper emerges for Aloy to defeat.
Schoonen says that they had to consider the depth of the arena so that Aloy cannot easily escape the encounter. Also, they came up with the Purgewater Sacs for the Tideripper to emerge from for continuity’s sake. She said they also needed to put a flat space into the design of the arena for the Tideripper to move on while also giving places for Aloy to maneuver. Check out an image of this battle below.
Both Hoting and Schoonen are delighted that their hard work paid off. Fans of the game often mention The Sea of Sands quest specifically, so it sounds like they nailed it despite the new challenges. If you haven’t had the chance to play the game, hopefully this will inspire you to give it try.