Horizon: Zero Dawn's E3 2016 Demo Shows Off Gorgeous Setting and New Abilities

During Sony's E3 2016 press conference, we saw a lengthy new gameplay demo of what is one of the PS4's most hotly anticipated new IPs, Horizon: Zero Dawn. And it looks absolutely gorgeous.

Last year, Sony showed off the first glimpses of how you'll fight the massive robotic dinosaurs using the main character Aloy's futuristic abilities and primitive weapons. Today, though, we got a much better look at exploration and story in the game.

The world is massive and open, and in the demo we see Aloy call up her map. Only a portion of it was highlighted--a small section of a verdant valley in between snow-topped mountains. In this valley, bizarre-looking robot dinos prowl, waiting to pounce on the main character. It's a lush and forested world. Worn-out wooden structures, ruined but still functional, are spread out through the land. A village sits at the base of the mountains, full of low wooden houses. This is a harsh world, and the robots make it harsher.

As before, it's somewhat shocking to see Aloy attempting to take on these hulking mechanical monstrosities with just a bow, knife, and other somewhat primitive weaponry. But then, Aloy takes out a slingshot and starts lobbing explosives at one of the robots. Later, she crafts explosive charges, and another scene shows her wielding arrows charged with electricity. She's got futuristic abilities that give her an edge on the robots.

In my opinion, the most interesting ability shown off is Aloy's domestication skill. She can wield an electric drill to penetrate a wounded robot's brain and take it over, making it docile and usable as a mount. In the demo, she rides around the world on this robot and can even fight from it.

The demo also shows a few hints at story in the game. For example, the final monster that Aloy fights is called a Corrupter, which is clearly malicious whereas other robots are simply predatory. It seems to have been able to corrupt other animals, as well, making them mutated and glowing red. Finally, the game will have dialogue options, although the demo only showed off one instance of them.

This game keeps getting more and more exciting, and the new reveal of the Corrupter robots and the domestication drill as well as a better look of the environment makes this one of my most anticipated games. Horizon: Zero Dawn looks great, and I'm excited to get my hands on it as soon as possible. It'll launch on PS4 on February 28, 2017.