Sony threw the audience a number of surprises during their E3 press conference this year including bringing back three games which fans have been salivating over for quite some time. While The Last Guardian, Shenmue III, and the long awaited Final Fantasy VII remake has people excited, another new IP from a well known studio also had the industry buzzing.

Another major surprise came early on in the press conference as Guerrilla Games introduced the world to Horizon: Zero Dawn, a big departure from the studio's previous work with the Killzone franchise. With only a gameplay demo to go off of, fans have been clamoring for new information on the open world title.

Speaking with GamesRadar, art director Jan Bart Van Beek and lead producer Lambert Wolterbeek Muller revealed a number of new tidbits fans can expect from this open world action game. While being a post-apocalyptic title, the timeline of Horizon: Zero Dawn places things a thousand years after civilization's collapse. Combat is more tactical, focusing on using the bow as a weapon due to mankind's limited understanding of technology at this point in time.

Horizon: Zero Dawn will also have an XP system and abilities, letting players customize and develop their character to a certain play style. While no specifics were given, Van Beek did confirm that the game would feature three different play styles: stealth, firepower, and hunting. Players can choose to develop as much or as little as they want of these three categories for either a specialist or jack of all trades character type.

For a studio well known for their multiplayer efforts in Killzone, many fans might be surprised to learn that Horizon: Zero Dawn is being developed sole with the single player aspect in mind. Still, the team at Guerrilla Games is adding a social element to the title, though no additional details were provided.

"The core of the game is a single player experience, but there are certain social features in there" art director Jan Bart Van Beek said.

Traditionally single player games have been pushing into the social space more and more lately in an effort to help gamers feel like they're connected to one another. Some games pull this off well such as Sleeping Dogs, where player stats are tracked and placed on a leaderboard. Other games such as Assassin's Creed Unity, even with a newly added co-op mechanic, ultimately fell flat due to server related issues which negatively impacted the overall experience. Alternatively, certain titles like Watch_Dogs go further to blur the line by adding asynchronous multiplayer components that intersect with the single player experience such as the Online Contracts feature.

How do you feel about the lack of multiplayer in this new IP from Guerrilla Games?

Horizon: Zero Dawn is due out sometime in 2016 for the PlayStation 4.

Source: GamesRadar