For just under a year, Guerrilla has been working with the team at Steamforged Games to bring you a fully cooperative, narrative-driven tabletop experience set in the world of Horizon.
Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion will launch on Kickstarter on November 21 and today we wanted to give you a preview of what this adventure will have in store for players. Taking our learnings and feedback from Horizon Zero Dawn: The Board Game, Guerrilla and Steamforged Games have worked closely to elevate what a Horizon board game experience can be.
Emil Cholich, Senior Text and Games Editor at Guerrilla, sets the stage: “Seeds of Rebellion takes place about six months before Regalla’s attack on the embassy in Horizon Forbidden West. The story puts you and your friends in the shoes of new marshals tasked by Hekarro with investigating worrying reports of unrest among the Tenakth. This quest will take players across clan lands ravaged by the Red Plague, pit them against colossal machines, and allow them to discover the Regalla Rebellion in its earliest days, a period that players have yet to explore.”
“When Aloy arrives in the Forbidden West, Regalla’s rebels have established many strongholds in the Clanlands. Seeds of Rebellions offers a glimpse not only of the formative days of this rebellion, but also of the vengeful, impulsive, or sometimes misguided young Tenakth who are drawn to it.”
This board game was created to be a deeper and richer experience for Horizon fans than its predecessor Zero Dawn. Players will have to work together to uncover the truth and save many Tenakth lives in the process. “Seeds of Rebellion is a fully cooperative campaign game divided into 13 chapters. Each of which is divided into two main gameplay sections: narrative and combat,” says Fraser McFetridge, product owner of Steamforged.
“During the narrative sections, players will experience the game’s story through text input where they can choose their own adventure. As they do so, they’ll make decisions about which NPCs to talk to, how they’ll trade their hard-earned resources, and face all sorts of challenges beyond the already exciting combat. Most excitingly, players’ decisions influence upcoming combat encounters, where they will place their unique miniatures on encounter maps to take on enemy miniatures in a larger environment.”
Let’s delve into machine combat, something Horizon fans will know a lot about, in Seeds of Rebellion. “We’ve designed the narrative of Seeds of Rebellion in such a way that players can encounter the machines in a variety of ways, depending on how they choose to explore,” shares Fraser. “Things like sneaking through cover to ambush a Stiltclaw; find a way to trap a Tremortusk so you can escape its devastating weaponry; or avoid a charging Bristleback while trampling anything in its path. Then, of course, there is the classic fight to the death against a coiled Slitherfang.”
Taking the intricate machines of the world of Horizon and creating them in miniature is no easy task. Steamforged addressed this head-on. “Of course, we can’t ignore the Tremortusk in the room: the miniatures, which are highly detailed mini-representations of the machines fans know and love. Our sculpting team has always stuck in my brain with the phrase ‘the most complex miniatures we’ve ever created,'” says Fraser. “I would go so far as to describe Forbidden West’s machines as ‘perfect’ for tabletop translation, given the careful precision with which they are designed, combining form and function. I was told that some of the sculpture references we received from Guerrilla were over a billion polygons. I’m not a sculptor, but I’m sure that means they are extremely detailed!
It’s not just the machines that are important to translate well into a board game format. “We’ve been working closely with Guerrilla to integrate memorable locations and characters from the game into the encounter maps and narrative,” shared Fraser. “We’ve also put a lot of care into our game design to authentically recreate the experience of playing and exploring the Forbidden West. From creeping through tall grass to precisely targeting a machine’s components, weakening its attacks, and collecting its valuable scrap.”
Improving the woven story has always been at the forefront of all Horizon experiences. “This is inherently a story of unity and teamwork,” says Emil. “Player characters must work together to overcome dwindling odds against human and deadly machine threats. “The cooperative gameplay and narrative engine developed by Steamforged gave us the space to bring to the table the compelling characters that the world of Horizon is known for.”
For those who also supported the board game Horizon Zero Dawn, Steamforged has good news. “Compatibility with the board game Horizon Zero Dawn is particularly important to us. That said, we’re keeping the details about this very close to our chest (I’m sure you’ll understand our desire to avoid too many spoilers),” says Fraser. “What we can confirm now is that there will be a backwards compatibility pack, available at no additional cost to returning backers who committed to Horizon Zero Dawn: The Board Game, which will allow them to take their Zero Dawn miniatures directly to the already …challenging lands of the Forbidden West.”
Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion will be available on Kickstarter starting November 21 and you can sign up now. notified about the release here.
Horizon Forbidden West: Seeds of Rebellion will be available only in English.
