

As mentioned, a big part of this world is fighting machines shaped like animals, and each machine has several weaknesses that you can exploit. Your weaponry is an amusing mix of old and new tech, featuring gear like a bow that can shoot shock arrows. I literally do not remember this scene happening.Īs Aloy, you have several tools at your disposal to navigate the world. I’m not sure if it was the writing or my imagination, but I felt a connection to her and the responsibilities she was entrusted with. My one sticking point is that the characters’ facial animations look uncanny half the time, leading to a break in the immersion.Īlso, as a side note, Aloy is a great protagonist. For the most part, one key plot point would lead to the next pretty seamlessly, and while there are codices scattered all over the place for you to read, I pretty much never did but still got the core premise of what was going on.Įngaging with the characters, exhausting the dialogue trees, and learning about the world these tribes reside in (and how it came to be) definitely added to my experience. Without spoiling anything, Horizon Zero Dawn’s narrative felt well-paced, and I actually enjoyed interacting with the characters and learning more about them. Reddick’s scathing and dismissive dialogue simultaneously makes you want to hear more and give him the bird with both hands. Lance Reddick (The Wire, John Wick) also voices/portrays a character in this game, so you’ll interact with him quite a lot as you delve into the secrets of the “old world.” Should you choose to engage in all the threads that are generously indicated on your map, you’ll find yourself undertaking tasks ranging from finding a collection of gift shop mugs to saving a monarch’s life. Your travels will take you through various biomes to interact with several key factions who are all, in some form or fashion, carving out their path in a brutal world. The elders of the tribe appoint her a “seeker,” giving her the authority to travel outside of the Nora homelands to search for the attackers, avenge her adopted dad’s death, and discover the truth behind the machine corruption. Nonetheless, following an attack by unknown invaders and feral machines that can “take control” of other robots, Aloy finds herself alone for the first time, as her mentor (and father figure) dies in the attack. It is a relentless Pavlovian mechanism of a mechanic tutorial revolving around a particular skill you’ll have to use, followed by a reaffirmation that nobody accepts you.

The entirety of the first 30-45 minutes revolves around stressing the point that she is a hated outcast, unfit even to be looked at sideways. In Horizon Zero Dawn, the main character, Aloy, starts off completely shunned by her people, the Nora.
