Horizon Forbidden West Interviews
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Following the recent gameplay reveal for Guerrilla Games' open world action-RPG Horizon Forbidden West, we can now check out a couple of interviews with the game's developers. First is the official PlayStation blog where the game's composers discuss their creative process. Have a look:
Then, there's this GameInformer interview with game director Mathijs de Jonge and narrative director Benjamin McCaw that focuses more on Horizon Forbidden West's new gameplay features:
And here are a few paragraphs from the blog post linked above:
Familiar themes
Lozowchuk first fully immersed himself in the original’s soundtrack to get into the mindset of Aloy’s world, then set out to “compliment and contour” what had come before, building variations and fragments of previous themes, while also creating new emotional beats for players. He wasn’t alone. The Flight loaded up original recording sessions to remind themselves of the process, while Joris de Man looked back on his own pieces to “figure out what made those tracks work”.
All tease that we’ll hear returning themes from the original. Aloy’s Theme is one, “albeit adapted to the new game,” confirms de Man. With that track capturing Aloy’s growing confidence over the course of the first game, how can they evolve further yet retain that familiar resonance? “That’s probably one of the most interesting aspects of [this sequel] for me,” he responds.
For him and the other returning composers, they were eager to find new additions to layer onto a world the musical DNA of which they defined. “We were aware this was new sonic territory, it couldn’t be retread of the previous game,” de Man admits of the challenge ahead.
They all looked to both the real world and Aloy’s for inspiration. “You read up on the backstory of the part of Horizon Forbidden West’s world you’re working on,” van der Leest outlines as his way back in. “Try and find similarities with our own (musical) history and then distil from that to create something new.” Oleksa feels the team has found a great balance of interweaving returning music and new score. “You never want to alienate those who love the first game, but want to give them plenty to explore and journey through for the sequel.”
