Horizon Forbidden West will come with new underwater environments that players will be free to explore. Unlike Horizon Zero Dawn, the upcoming title will allow Aloy to go as deep as she can to discover secrets and complete tasks that Guerrilla Games is keeping under wraps for now. According to game director Mathijs de Jonge, Guerrilla’s engineers spent years on Horizon Forbidden West‘s water rendering and wave techniques.
“Our engineers spent an incredible amount of time on the water rendering and wave techniques,” de Jonge told GQ. “They probably spent years on that.” That’s great news for players because Horizon Forbidden West is set a thousand years into the future, where the sea level has “risen significantly,” as de Jonge explained to Hardware Zone.
“A lot of the places that we have on the map are now flooded,” he continued. “So you have these sunken cities that you can go into. There are also…I don’t want to go into too much detail on this, but there are also specific scenarios, quests and even activities where you have to go underwater to discover certain secrets or to help certain people.”
Speaking separately to Game Informer, de Jonge confirmed that Horizon Forbidden West‘s PS5 version will come with enhancements not possible on the PS4. The special rendering technique for underwater scenes is one such example.
“The rendering technique for the underwater scenes is special for the PlayStation 5, it has extra details and extra systems, like the wave technique is better on that system,” he said.
Horizon Forbidden West has yet to be dated.
[Source: GQ]
