John Gonzalez, who’s been at Guerrilla Games for nearly seven years, has left the studio. While at Guerrilla, Gonzalez was the lead writer on Horizon Zero Dawn, and had also been serving as the narrative director on its upcoming sequel, Horizon Forbidden West.
On his LinkedIn page, Gonzalez states that for the upcoming PS5 exclusive, he “created the game’s story and major characters, designing the narrative flow of the main quest beat by beat.”
He adds, “Collaborated intensely with Design to unite narrative and gameplay and with Art to realize the game’s new tribes and key locations. Wrote key cinematics, conversations, and other content.”
Interestingly enough, Gonzalez’s page states that he has joined a brand new studio in Barcelona, Spain that he hasn’t named. At the new studio, he’s working on a new AAA open world IP. What this game is, what its genre is, or when it might be announced obviously aren’t things his LinkedIn bio goes into. It simply states, “details to follow.”
Before his tenure at Guerrilla Games, Gonzalez was also the lead narrative designer on Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, while before that he was at Obsidian Entertainment, where he was the story lead on Fallout: New Vegas.