Horizon Zero Dawn is a great game.
But 2 years before shipping, testers labeled the game “BEYOND DISAPPOINTING”.
Here is what Eric Boltjes from Guerrilla Games thinks makes Game Design a difficult job.
The challenge of playtesting
2 years before shipping, Guerrilla ran a playtest with 20 players playing the full game for the first time.
They had set up analytics, their surveys were ready and they had the best possible build of the game. It was gonna be amazing.
But feedback was brutal.
The response was really negative.
• The game felt unbalanced.
• There were bugs everywhere.
• The core mechanics were bad.
After 4 years of development, Horizon was in trouble.
Designing games is a difficult job.
It requires that at the start of the project you convince people that your ideas are good.
And even if you do, then you need to work to get them into the game.
If you are lucky you get to make prototypes, but then…
Feedback starts.
And it’s usually negative.
You only get to show a little glimpse of what your idea is with the resources you have for the prototype.
And the negative feedback usually creates doubt that lasts the whole project.
Did I make the right choice, is the feature as good as it can be?
These doubts can even last longer than development and continue after launch.
That being said, today we know that Horizon is a great success. It has critical success and acclaim.
But most importantly.
Players love the game.
The hard work of Game Design is worth it.
Even the most successful games go through stretches where the designers doubt the work.
The job is to believe in an idea enough to get it built, then take the feedback and keep polishing until it holds up.
Recap. Horizon shipped to acclaim, but two years out a 20-player playtest called it “beyond disappointing”, unbalanced, buggy, weak core mechanics. That came after four years of work and still didn’t sink the game. Doubt is part of the job, not proof the idea is wrong.
What this doesn’t cover. This is the mindset, not the method. It doesn’t get into what Guerrilla actually changed after that playtest, what they cut and what they rebuilt, which is the part I’d want to read. That’s a separate post.
