Horizon: Zero Dawn's First Prototype Had Machine Guns

PlayStation has posted a pretty cool video interview in which Uncharted director Neil Druckmann speaks to Guerrilla Games managing director Hermen Hulst about Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Among other things, Hulst talks about how close Zero Dawn's final product is to the studio's original vision. The game stayed true for the most part, Hulst said, though early on Guerrilla played with the idea of the combat sticking more true to Killzone. "The very first prototype we did had Killzone M82 guns in it and you were firing your machine gun at these robotic dinosaurs," he says. Very quickly, this felt "weird," and Guerrilla changed directions in terms of combat.

Also in the interview, Druckmann himself mentions the fact that the Uncharted series actually started with more of a steampunk, open-world feel, which is pretty cool to think about.

The full interview is fascinating and eye-opening, with the two developers each offering nice, frank insight into the production of their games. Druckmann also shares his thoughts on Zero Dawn, praising in particular the game's gorgeous graphics. "You better believe I'm going to my team and saying, 'OK, [Zero Dawn] is the bar now. We have to top this,'" Druckmann said.

The efforts paid off, it seems, as both Uncharted 4: A Thief's End and Zero Dawn were very well received and sold millions of copies each.

Next up for Uncharted is the Lost Legacy standalone game, which we learned this week comes out in August. As for Zero Dawn, Sony has teased that a story expansion is on the way.