Horizon Zero Dawn - Discovering the Exquisite

Horizon Zero Dawn takes place in a beautiful post-post-apocalyptic world where machines are among the wildlife and humanity lives in tribes. The end of the word and civilization as we know it came and went and the people from the year 2064 are now simply known as the “Old Ones.” The protagonist Aloy, an outcast since birth, seeks to learn of her origins and will go to any length to do so. Her tribe, the matriarchal Nora, worship an All-Mother whose will is passed from the matriarchs to the tribe. I was elated to see such a change of pace in a video game, with such location names as Mother’s Embrace and Mother’s Heart, and appreciated the normalcy with which it was treated.

Once the world was open to me, I found an enormous array of characters, all very diverse in race, gender, age and interests. There was a point where I hit a few back-to-back gathering quests which was minorly frustrating but apart from that, the quests easily distinguish themselves, rarely lacking creativity. I’m rarely such a completionist, but I wasn’t going to be satisfied until I beat everything I could in this game, barring collectibles. I was absolutely hooked and completed all quests, main and side. At certain moments in the story, “Flashpoints,” I was able to make a reactionary decision that was either confrontational, intelligent or compassionate. I can’t say for sure that these actually mattered to the story (except once where I spared someone’s life), but this agency helped bring Aloy to life and gave some flexibility in the linearity. Dissenting and contrarian, yet compassionate and caring, she’s a complex and multifaceted.

As a child, Aloy finds a device, a Focus, found in a forbidden ancient ruin. Attached to the temple, the Focus helps Aloy read the machine’s weak points, track movement and receive data from various other technologies later on. Overriding machines learned through delving into the production facilities, known only as cauldrons, and gaining their knowledge becomes a thrilling, though ultimately optional pursuit. Overridden machines fought with me side-by-side to face scenarios I could have completed alone, but at much higher risk and resource cost. But oh my god, overriding multiple machines and watching them fight hostile herds is exactly the sort of “EvE” (Environment vs Environment) that has captivated me ever since the days of Garry’s Mod, pitting Antlions against waves of Combine. I would often override a Behemoth or a Trampler and watch the imminent destruction from afar.

All narrative and questing aside, exploring the world and doing literally anything was so gratifying. Hours would fly by at a time and I found myself too often playing from before sunset to after sunrise without even advancing any questlines - I stayed up until 7 am one “night”. I was level 50, the max, just a little halfway through the main campaign, which of course came after exploring all the cauldrons, Tallnecks, corruption zones and bandit camps. Holy shit, this game is rad.

Horizon Zero Dawn offers the most specific combat system I’ve ever seen; each machine having specific parts I could knock off, be they attached guns or compartments revealing weak points. By this same token, the combat can be very demanding and difficult. My most frustrating moment was trying to slay a legion of Glinthawks with merely my shit aim and fire arrows (there are better ways). Admittedly, near the end, I found myself either falling back to my trip caster, firing 600 damage blast wires (that’s a lot), or formulaically performing the same series of actions I deemed most efficient. For example, killing a Thunderjaw using one Tearblast arrow per disc launcher and using them against him is simultaneously super quick and insanely gratifying. Note that I was playing on normal, so it’s doubtful these tactics carry over to harder difficulties and it’ll be a long while before I try New Game+ on its hardest difficulty, if ever. Looted or knocked off parts, as well as meat hunted from wildlife and plants gathered, are used in crafting ammo, traps, potions and expanding the inventory in a very Last of Us manner.

Voice actress Ashly Burch stars as Aloy, and has significantly more dialogue than in the previous game I knew her from, Life is Strange. Overall, she did an exceptional job and Aloy was a very believable character, though there were times she didn’t seem show as much emotional range in her inflection as a given situation might call for (namely certain side missions). I could be wrong, but this led me to believe some of her lines were recycled, similar to what Star Wars: The Old Republic did to cover the sheer volume of voice lines. This would be more permissible if not for the dialogue animation that was, at times, very flat and cringe-worthy. It left many scenes leaving more to be desired. Horizon Zero Dawn has a great cast and I heard a few other familiar voices, notably Adjoa Andoh, who plays Whisper from Fable, which was hugely nostalgic when the familiarity dawned on me. And some of the banter is fantastic. At one point, Sylens tells Aloy that the Earth is not flat like she thought, and she retorts with how she’d never think that, as the shadow visible on the moon during an eclipse is curved.

I could not recommend this game more. The combat system, character design and aesthetic could all single-handedly be their own reason.

This game is stunning, so you can imagine my struggle to choose which screenshots and clips to include.

Thunderjaw Cauldron Duel
Rockbreakers are Jerks