horizon
zero dawn

2012 – 2015 / GUERRILLA • SCEE

The Carja culture wasthe first thing we’ve helped Guerrilla to develop for Horizon: Zero Dawn in 2012. The material was to become part of the so-called “vertical slice” of the fledgeling game. After that we moved on to establish the Nora, Oseram and Bandit tribe in concepts and add. writing.

In hindsight this project turned out to be a great example for intrinsic design within a authentic open world.

TEAM

Tobias Mannewitz – Creative Director
Henrik Bolle – Lead Artist

Adrian Wilkins – Character Designer
Andrejs Skuja – Character Designer
Craig Mullins – Concept Artist
Dan Blomberg – Concept Artist
Floris Didden – Concept Artist
Karl Kopinski – Concept Artist
Kirill Barybin – Concept Artist
Marko Schöbel – Concept Artist
Mike Hill – Concept Artist

Philipp Scherer – Concept Artist
Sebastian Gromann – Concept Artist
Scott McInnes – Matte Painter
Steven Bagatzky – Prop Designer
Tim Löchner – Character Designer
Tom Hiebler – Matte Painter
Viktor Fetsch – Character Designer
Ville Ericson – Prop Designer
Viktor Jonsson – Concept Artist

CLIENT

„Designing the Carja tribe and the capital city of Meridian was one of the greatest design challenges of the project. The scope of the vision and ambition that Guerrilla had for this Horizon tribe made it necessary to distribute the work involved across various different design studios.

Karakter played a key role in working with Guerrilla to design the design process itself. By designing and developing the Carja tribe through strict methodologies, Guerrilla and Karakter were able to deliver broad-stroke style-guides that had the consistency that was needed to allow other studios to collaborate on designing finer grains elements of the Carja tribe.

The design process that was developed, became a template for all other tribal design. It’s a testament to the collaboration between Karakter and Guerrilla.“

ROLAND IJZERMAN, LEAD ARTIST GUERRILLA GAMES

city on the mesa

„The following images stem from creative development periods. We knew what kind of ecosystem the Carja would inhabit, the dangers proposed by the Machines and the midset the Carja had developed as a consequence. We were then looking around the globe for vernacular architecture confronted with – at least in parts – similar challenges and utilized them as springboards for further exploration.“

TOBIAS MANNEWITZ, CREATIVE DIRECTOR

„The citadel of sunfall has always been a cult place and military stronghold in Carja territory, but it gained even moresignificance in recent zears when the defeated opposition partz made it the new capital of the exile government.“

TOBIAS MANNEWITZ, CREATIVE DIRECTOR

„The citadel of sunfall has always been a cult place and military stronghold in Carja territory, but it gained even moresignificance in recent zears when the defeated opposition partz made it the new capital of the exile government.“

TOBIAS MANNEWITZ, CREATIVE DIRECTOR

ghost town

bone yard

bandits

oseram

„The origin of the Oseram architecture lies in small round huts built from wood or stone. They are still being erected to form small camps for charburners and lumbermen. Over the course of the centuries, this simple building type evolved into a more complex style. The Oseram are organized in clans, who often quarrel amongst each other. Using patterns, colors and symbols, the clans have developed somewhat heraldic means of displaying their identity towards other Oseram and other tribes.“

TOBIAS MANNEWITZ, CREATIVE DIRECTOR

„The origin of the Oseram architecture lies in small round huts built from wood or stone. They are still being erected to form small camps for charburners and lumbermen. Over the course of the centuries, this simple building type evolved into a more complex style. The Oseram are organized in clans, who often quarrel amongst each other. Using patterns, colors and symbols, the clans have developed somewhat heraldic means of displaying their identity towards other Oseram and other tribes.“

TOBIAS MANNEWITZ, CREATIVE DIRECTOR

nora

„The Nora adorn themselves with hunting trophies – only that the most prestigious trophys are not organic teeth, claws or bones, but of robotic origin. Hence, the final call on the Nora design had to wait until the visual design for Horizon’s machines was established.“ HENRIK BOLLE, LEAD ARTIST/KARAKTER

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