Horizon Forbidden West will also reap the benefits of volumetric objects. In the Burning Shores DLC, the developers are going to allow us to travel through places “built” from the clouds.
Counter-Strike 2 will have its volumetric smoke, and Guerrilla Games will use technology to make clouds in the Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores DLC for PlayStation 5, which will be more than just a background view. Details, but not all, have been revealed by Andrew Schneider, the team’s special effects manager.
This is by no means a sudden whim of the developers. As we read in an article on the official PlayStation blog, the Dutch developer dreamed of using volumetric objects in the sky already in the first game of the Horizon series. The team even created a dedicated simulator to test “interactive” clouds.
However, technological limitations did not allow this vision to materialize in Zero Dawn or Forbidden West (although the system used in the previous game was greatly improved in the sequel). Not before Once work on the second game was complete, Guerrilla Games skyrocketed, having ditched the older PlayStation 4..
One of the reasons was the addition of flying mounts in FW, which allowed players to interact more closely with clouds. The developers want players to be able to traverse not individual volumetric puffs, but entire landscapes and “environments” made of clouds (bluntly described as “Frankencloudscape” by Schneider) during the sky journey.
In practice, the new technology clouds are more than a flying background. The clouds will become a place of their own, so to speak, full of, and we quote, “tunnels, caves, and assorted surprises.” On top of that, this landscape will change depending on the time of day (and probably the weather too; Schneider didn’t want to say too much, but expressed hope that we wouldn’t be afraid of ” some flashes”).
Players will be able to explore “cloudy” locations. Source: Guerrilla Games.
Of course, in the end, this novelty is primarily aimed at providing impressive views, which representatives of luminism would not refuse (it was this trend of American painting that inspired the developers).
Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores will debut on April 19, 2023. You will need the base game for PlayStation 5 to play.
More for you:
- Horizon Forbidden West – game guide
Passionate about video games (and others) for years, he completed an MBA in linguistics, defending a thesis on games. He started his adventure with GlobeLiveMedia in 2015, writing in the editorial department, then also covering movies and oh, horror! – technology (also a contributor to the Games Encyclopedia). He started with platform games, which he still loves (including metroidvania), but he also likes card games (including “analog” games), fighting games, soul games and virtually any other kind of game. Don’t ask about the graphics: after a few hours of exposure, you can revel in pixelated game characters reminiscent of the days of the Game Boy era (if not older).
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