NieR: Automata Director, More Devs Give Praise To Horizon: Zero Dawn

It may be the holiday season, which means it's a time for some folks to take it easy as the New Year prepares to start. But that didn't stop Sony from posting a nice year-end piece, with various developers picking their favorite games of 2017.

While there are a number of games mentioned in the PlayStation Blog piece, including Injustice 2 and Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, most of the praise went to Guerrilla Games' Horizon: Zero Dawn, which many fans consider one of the best games of 2017. And we can't say we blame them.

Leading the praise was Fumihiki Yasuda, who serves as director of Team Ninja, who worked on Nioh for this year. He noted, "I was amazed by the quality of the graphics and the art style, deep story, stealth tactics, and combat were all top notch making everything run in perfect unison."

Joining him in praise was Steve Goss, who serves as director of design for Supermassive Games, who finished the PlayLink title Hidden Agenda this year. "The game offered real sense of place, with the robot machines some of the best gaming foes we've seen in years."

Other comments for the game are as follows:

"I'm a huge fan of the Killzone games so I'm always looking forward to anything they make but this game still surprised me on many levels. Great narrative, gorgeous visuals and animation, and really really tight combat mechanics. Absolutely outstanding." James Valls, Senior Producer, Rebellion (Sniper Elite 4)

"A lot of western mecha designs can feel as though they lack detail to Japanese audiences, but the mecha designs in this game are surprisingly intricate, incorporating elements of anime and sci-fi films. I felt a bit threatened knowing that designs like this are coming out of western studios!" Yoko Taro, Director, Platinum Games (Nier: Automata)

"There's definitely something under the skin of Horizon Zero Dawn that stays with you long after the credits have rolled. While, at its core, it's a game about tearing through giant robot animals and dinosaurs, the world building (and previous destruction!) give the game a sense of believability and humanity that you can't really help but fall in love with and want to return to. I'm very excited about what the future holds for Horizon and, of course Aloy." Brad Davey, Lead Designer, Sumo Digital (Snake Pass)

"It's great that a studio like Guerrilla took the risk with a new IP, and made it such a great success." Mark Healey, Creative Director, Media Molecule (Dreams)

So yeah. If you don't have Horizon: Zero Dawn yet, you might want to fix that.

Horizon: Zero Dawn is available now for PlayStation 4.