Horizon Forbidden West developer Guerrilla revealed which character from the sequel was the most challenging to create.
In an interview with GamesRadar+, narrative director Ben McCaw and senior writer Annie Kitain discussed several of Horizon Forbidden West’s key story points and revealed that, in one case, "getting that [character] right took many drafts and revisions and rethinking."
If you haven’t yet played Horizon Forbidden West and really don’t want to know anything ahead of time, we suggest you don’t read the original interview or this news story for now.
- Horizon Zero Dawn's Aloy is the star of Sony's leaked AI-powered character prototype, which allows users to ask questions to an unsettling, emotionless version of the protagonist
- PlayStation veteran Shuhei Yoshida says he's surprised by Horizon Forbidden West's success compared to Zero Dawn's own: "I was hoping that the sequel would do even better"
**Horizon Forbidden West spoilers below**
We asked how hard it was to balance the relationship between Aloy and clone Beta, to which McCaw responded: "This was the most difficult one [to write]. Getting that right took many drafts and revisions and rethinking. But it was critical. It's the emotional core of the game.
"It's also, so to speak, the alpha example of the problem that Aloy faces, which is that she wants to love the world, but she doesn't necessarily love everyone in it," McCaw continued. "Including this kind of reflection of herself."
Kitain then added: "Beta represents all of Aloy's conflicts about wanting to be like Elisabet, wanting to connect to others, but feeling isolated. All of that coming together into one person. It's Aloy trying to deal with that."
The team sometimes referred to Beta early in the game as a dark mirror for Aloy: "Where you look in the mirror, and you just don't like what you see."
"Mostly because Beta's essentially frightened, and abused," McCaw went on. "And those are things that Aloy wants to bury in herself; her upbringing, her fear. So we wanted that to hurt a little bit, to sting to have to see that, but then to have her accept those things as well."
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