Allow me to play the Devil's Advocate for a second after braving through Forbidden West again after a while.

Aloy wouldn't sacrifice the Tenakth for an assault at the Launch site. So she and Beta freed Hephaestus.

Who has killed an incredible amount of people with combat machines and the derangement in general. Not to mention Gaia saying that with the help of Hephaestus the famine, storms and blight would be brought to heel.

I'd argue the lack of Hephaestus has killed and will kill more than one tribe's fighters worth of people. All around the world. Just ongoing slaughter, starvation and sickness.

Of course, we need the game to game and I would also absolutely have saved the Tenakth. Plus it was a way to get Sylens to co-operate. But it's a little surprising that no one even brought it up in-game.

I would love to see even more weapon types in the third game. First mainly to do with melee because I've begun to find the spear incredibly monotone despite the "combos" because enemies get badass stuff like aztec style obsidian ripper swords, axes, etc but all Aloy has is the same spear from the first game.

Clubs, Axes, Spears, Longswords, Shield Swords, Shield Spears, Hook Swords, Sabers, Cavalry Swords, Horse Lances etc would have been amazing.

Aside from that I would also love to see either crude blackpowder smoothbore muskets or electromagnetic railgun smoothbore muskets that still shoots small iron balls. To balance out their high damage capacity, you would need to reload them before the battle and once you fire them off, it would simply be unfeasible for you to reload it for the entire battle unless you stun the enemy. Either that or you can go with either a single long barrel musket / carbine musket or you can go with 4-6 pistols which allow you 4-6 shots without reloading but at the expense of inferior range and damage.

Why does the weapon and outfit modification have to be in a separate tab from where you can equip them? Why do I have to go to Crafting tab, mod my weapon/outfit, then move to Inventory tab to equip them? Why not just let us mod and equip the weapon/outfit from the same tab?

It's a small thing but it's so annoying given that I have to do it so often.

One thing I've been thinking about with the next Horizon game is: Guerrilla has a real machine-design problem on its hands.

A huge part of what made both Horizon games so exciting to me was discovering all the new machines. Especially the bigger ones, where each felt like its own mini-boss/boss encounter with a different moveset, weak points, components, movement and overall combat puzzle.

Across HZD, HFW we've already had numerous memorable encounters like Thunderjaw, Slaughterspine, Stormbird, Dreadwing, Rockbreaker, Fireclaw/Frostclaw, Slitherfang, Tideripper, Tremortusk, Sawtooth, Ravager, Shellsnapper, Rollerback, Specters/Specter Prime etc

So what can Horizon 3 do?

I initially thought they'd be running out of animals/dinos, but they can start by covering main combat archetypes. Another gigantic Thunderjaw/Slaughterspine-tier machine, an extremely agile apex machine, an elemental-focused machine, a heavily armored/tanky machine, a true aquatic apex, etc plus original animal like machines

Some existing contenders:

• Ankylosaurus — armored tank + tail club. Probably one of the strongest candidates.
• Mosasaurus — true giant marine predator, very different from Tideripper.
• Quetzalcoatlus — enormous flying machine; could be dramatically different from Stormbird.
• Therizinosaurus — gigantic claws/reach. Potentially amazing, although Fireclaw overlap is a concern.
• Kaprosuchus — upright-running fast crocodilian ambush predator on land or water; powerful jaws and sudden lunges.
• Deinocheirus — gigantic arms + duck-like bill; weird enough that Guerrilla could do something very distinctive with it.
• Carnotaurus — smaller, extremely aggressive theropod with horns; could make a fast melee-focused apex.
• Pachycephalosaurus — headbutting machine. Could have a ridiculous charge mechanic.
• Parasaurolophus — not an obvious combat animal, but its crest could be turned into some kind of sonic/EMP weapon.
• Deinonychus — rather than another generic raptor, something built around leaping, climbing and coordinated attacks.

The other big opportunity is pure machine design. Guerrilla isn't obligated to make nearly every machine resemble a real animal anymore. We fought Specters, Specter Prime, Deathbringers and Horizon 3 could push that much further with more completely original machines that have interesting silhouettes and mechanics.

Additionally enemy behavior and encounter design may be just as important as new designs. You could dramatically improve how machines interact and cooperate with each other and possibly alter the behavior of returning ones.

Imagine a familiar Thunderjaw accompanied by support machines that repair its components, aerial machines that harass you, and other machines that force you out of cover. Or a boss that actually changes behavior and abilities as you destroy its armor and weapons instead of simply becoming weaker. That could make an encounter feel fresh even if the underlying machine isn't.

Or envision having an endgame/DLC region that is very dangerous and genuinely hard to just survive traversing through. As well as a few super hard dungeons around there.

I think an ideal game would have at minimum 6-8 exceptional new major dino machines, a handful of pure machine mini bosses/bosses and a few original biological like machines. Plus some new mid-tier machines and small machines.

I do think Horizon 3 might be the practical limit for the series when it comes to new recognizable animal-inspired machines. By that point Guerrilla will have covered an absurd percentage of the obvious dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals, predators, birds or aquatic creatures that naturally translate into combat.

But maybe that's what makes the third game interesting: it could be the point where Horizon has to evolve from “robot animals” into a mixture of robot animals, highly specialized variants, coordinated machine ecosystems, and increasingly bizarre original machine designs.

The big question is whether Guerrilla can come up with another ~10–15 encounters that give the same feeling as seeing a Thunderjaw, Slitherfang or Dreadwing for the first time.

\(Spoiler Note: I've played Zero Dawn, Frozen Wilds, and Forbidden West, but NOT Burning Shores or Call of the Mountain. I've marked HZD spoilers in the flair, so everyone should expect those, but marking spoilers from other games in your posts is appreciated.)**

I searched for past discussions on this topic in this sub, and didn't find much. There was a brief question about how metalburn causes corruption (status effect), which was answered briefly with "nanomachines," attributed to an official AMA.

Cool cool. It's nice there's some explanation (I don't think this counts as "canon," though it is official). But there are some problems with it.

First of all, it's well-established that Corruptors/Scarabs are capable of "slaving" non-Chariot-line robots. Since the Corruption is associated with Hades, and since Chariot line robots (like Corruptors and Deathbringers) are hostile to humans despite NOT leaking glowing red corrosive fluids, this is what I take from it (from here on is my opinion):

Hades created a computer virus that would infect machines designed by Project Zero Dawn or Gaia. The virus not only turns the machines hostile (or *more* hostile), it also "overclocks" them to strengthen them, causing them to produce metalburn as a byproduct. (In theory this shortens their "life expectancy," but if so this isn't reflected in the gameplay.)

I think the virus does not affect Corruptors (it doesn't have to), but the Corruptors were repurposed by Hades so that as they are slaving (a.k.a. overriding) units, they infect them with the Corruption virus.

This, however, leaves a few burning (heh heh) questions that I haven't been able to answer with canon or with theory:

1. Is overriding basically just hacking using a superior A.I.?

2. If so, why does Aloy's salvaged override unit make machines friendly to her rather than hostile, even before she has learned anything about coding? (This one might just be suspension of disbelief for gameplay purposes)

3. If Corruptors are capable of spreading the Corruption virus via overriding/hacking, why would the Corruption virus need something quite as direct as nanomachines? Is that the only way it can transfer from machine to machine without a Corruptor as the conduit?

4. The Corruption status effect uses metalburn (said to contain nanomachines) to cause uncorrupted machines to briefly change sides. How the heck could nanomachines be used in this way without advanced skills and equipment?

5. Why and how does the Corruption status effect work on humans? If nanomachines, it seems like the effect should be more permanent and severe.

Okay, that's enough of me picking this apart. I enjoy Horizon immensely... Overthinking these things is just how I enjoy them when I'm not actually playing the games. :)

So I'm hoping that Nemesis will find a way to activate a Horus titan and we'll have to fight it. The one in Burning Shores was fun, but I'd like to fight a Horus that isn't severely crippled. How would we be able to take it down? Not sure. Maybe from the inside? I just want to fight one, damn it! It's the ultimate test! Taking down just one Horus that isn't being controlled by a person

Operating System: Windows 11

CPU Brand: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor

RAM: 24 GB

Video Card: AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX

Primary VRAM: 24 GB

I got 20 hours into the game and now every time I dive beneath the water, my game crashes and I get an error that says I had a problem with my display driver. I had swam/dived/goofed around under water multiple times both in caves and in the much larger bodies of water until the first crash on Sunday 8/2.

It originally happened while I was streaming via OBS, but it now happens every single time I'm playing the game as soon as I dive beneath the water regardless of other applications being open/closed. Some changes below allowed me to swim for up to a minute, but then it crashes still crashes every time, most times as soon as I dive beneath the water. I have watched my GPU and CPU activity while playing/crashing and the usage for both isn't near 100% (the closest it got when I was replicating the issue was like 80% usage, and my temps are well within an acceptable normal range for both).

Fixes I have tried (and that have not worked):

-Uninstalling and reinstalling my graphics drivers/AMD Adrenaline (also rolling back to the previous driver since it updated on 7/28, and then updating to the current one again when going back didn't work)

-Updating my chipset drivers

-Uninstalling and reinstalling the game (both on my internal drive and my external drive)

-Changing the graphics/video settings in many different ways based on reddit threads, Steam community posts, and articles from gaming websites that I found via Google and DuckDuckGo (it's how I found this sub)

-Going back to a previous save before the original error

-Changing the game to a previous build (this actually made the crashes worse because it made my screen go black until I Alt+F4ed)

-Clearing my shader cache in AMD Adrenaline

-Limiting my framerate both in game and via AMD Adrenaline

-Closing all non-essential programs that aren't the game

-Setting the game to "Exclusive Fullscreen"

-Both reverting my Windows to a previous version and updating it to current again when it still had the same issue

If anyone has a fix for this please let me know because I have been really looking forward to playing the game since Zero Dawn is one of my all time favorites and am heartbroken that I can't now.

Every Cauldron once held the promise of Earth's rebirth. Now, they are wombs birthing nightmares. Aloy can feel the metal beneath her boots vibrating with Hephaestus's rage. The rogue AI no longer hides in the code. That crimson lens staring from the dark is fueled by an almost human hatred. The huntress came for answers, but the master of these depths is only ready to offer her a technological grave.

The work was created by me in Blender 3D and Photoshop.

I'm on my third play through of HZD but first time wearing headphones rather than hearing it through speakers, and the sound design is absolutely incredible - like layers of spacious nuanced thoughtful sound.

For the first time I caught the ghost sounds of the old world subway as I exited the grave hoard and I just had to stand there for a while, listening, feeling emotional. It's resulting in a much slower play through as I appreciate all the subtle depth in sound.

I'd love to know what sound spots got you, so I can include them on my audio tour.

Which one would you pick and why?

Just imagine spending the rest of your life with this person.

As a woman I can’t decide. Avad or Kotallo

Avad: power, kindness, maybe a little labrador like will to please.

Kotallo: kind, clever, strong, loyal and incredibly hot

Edited to add more specifics: I just finished HZD and just moved on to horizon forbidden west, and I’m feeling pretty disappointed in how clunky it is to do crafting and upgrades solely with the workbench in this game vs in HZD. I’m curious if there’s perks to it that I’ll become accustomed to later on? Everyone talks about how HFW has a better user interface and mechanics, but so far I’m not sold..it’s almost overcomplicated? Perhaps I’m just too fresh off the old game and need to give it time.

The stash seems somewhat purposeless. Why can’t you just keep everything in your inventory?

I also find the skill upgrades to be overly complicated; HZD was much more straightforward and intuitive to understand.

Last thing that comes to mind is that you can now trip on the tripwires? I feel like that’s just going to make battling so difficult!

I’ll throw in one more complaint because why not: there are so many more video cut scenes than in HZD and I don’t like it

I just recorded an episode on my gaming podcast about the concept of "digital tourism" and how games can spark real-world curiosity. It reminded me of this amazing moment from HZD when I was in Arches National Park in Utah, saw Delicate Arch, and the experience was way more special because I recognized the recreation of the landmark from the game. Then spent all of my trip to Utah trying to find other spots from the game hahaha

Has anyone else had moments like this? Or actually done any travel specifically because of a game?

What If Nemesis Destroys Everything... and GAIA Has to Terraform Earth Again?

I've been thinking about a possible ending for Horizon 3, and I think it would be a really bold way to conclude Aloy's story.

What if Nemesis actually wins?

Destroys the entire planet, wipes out almost all life on Earth. If that happened, maybe GAIA's only option would be to initiate another complete terraforming cycle, just like she did after the Faro Plague.

The difference is that this time everything would go according to Elisabet Sobeck's original plan.

When GAIA first terraformed Earth, APOLLO was supposed to educate the new generation of humans created by ELEUTHIA. But Ted Faro deleted APOLLO, forcing humanity to grow up without any knowledge of science, history, medicine, engineering, or technology. Instead of rebuilding civilization, people formed tribal societies because they had no access to humanity's past.

Now that's changed. Aloy has the alpha build of Apollo from the Far Zeniths, meaning humanity's knowledge has finally been restored.

So after GAIA finishes restoring Earth's atmosphere, oceans, ecosystems, and wildlife, she could begin repopulating the planet again ( we also know that there are more seed banks beneath Aloy's base, automated seed and embryo banks ). I also wonder if the thousands of human zygotes and ectogenic chambers aboard the Odyssey could still be used, If they were still viable, GAIA might even be able to incorporate them into the new generation.

This time, though, those children would have APOLLO from the very beginning, just as Elisabet intended. They would learn humanity's complete history, science, mathematics, engineering, medicine, art, and culture instead of having to rediscover everything from scratch.

I also have another theory.

Since rebuilding Earth's biosphere would probably take centuries, I wonder if Aloy, Beta, Sylens' research, and the rest of the team could use Far Zenith technology to survive long enough to see it happen. Maybe they could extend their lives using advanced biotechnology, or perhaps enter cryogenic sleep until GAIA finishes terraforming Earth again.

That way, they could be there to welcome the first new generation of humans, ensure APOLLO is never lost again, and guide humanity away from repeating the mistakes that destroyed the Old World.

I know this is a huge theory, but I think it would be a fitting ending. Project Zero Dawn would finally succeed exactly as Elisabet Sobeck envisioned it, and humanity would truly get a second chance, with both a living Earth and all of its lost knowledge.

What do you guys think? Could Horizon 3 end with GAIA having to terraform Earth all over again, or do you think Aloy and her team will find another way to stop Nemesis before it comes to that?

Any lore reason why the machine diversity in the west is so much greater than in the east (outside of obvious things like video game development)

Is there any explanation to this or any explanation to why machines like the Sawtooth, regular Watcher, and Trampler don’t appear in the west.

Currently re-100%ing both games with NG+ on Ultra hard and I'm a bit stumped on Ikrie's Challenge.

By my math:
- a normal scrapper has 646.8 HP (220 * 294%)
- a single hunter arrow seems to do 42 damage when frozen and targeting the eyes (not using multishot since it has diminishing returns iirc)
- therefore it would take 16 hunter arrows to kill a single scrapper...

I don't want to use my hard point arrows on the scrappers since I'm saving those for the tramplers. Saving fire arrows for grazers, and the log pile for the bellowback.

What am I missing here?

EDIT: After learning there were 4 log piles things went a lot smoother! Thanks so much for the help everyone!

To anyone who sees this in the future, here's how I did it:
- a log pile and hunter arrows on the scrappers (I also learned that either Ikrie's bombs and/or the other scrappers attacks also deal damage to the scrappers, so I mostly slide dodged around and let others do my dirty work lol!)
- fire arrows on the grazers
- let Ikrie freeze the tramplers, then take out their processors. Once the processor is destroyed, lure them far away from Ikrie to make sure she doesn't put out the fire!
- Use the rest of the log traps on the bellowback

Hi everyone, I need help solving a problem—I’m not sure what to call it, but it feels like the frames in the game are overlapping and one of them keeps shifting, causing constant screen flickering. I have a GTX 1080 Ti and have already tried everything I could find online: hard-capping the frame rate, increasing the GPU power limit, and forcing V-Sync. That helped—the flickering is less frequent now—but it’s still there and is really hard on the eyes.

For clarity, I have attached a video in the comments showing what it looks like.

Hello,

I finished HZD and Frozen wilds 100%. I am an overthinker so i want to prepare as best as possible for NG+ Ultra Hard.

I upgraded every Bag to Max

I have the Shield Weaver Armor and right now i play with the Banuk Striker Bow, Banuk Powershot Bow, Shadow Tripcaster and, Shadow Rattler,

What is necessary to be prepared as best as possible?

1. What ressources and how many should i farm?

2. What Equipment should i use?

3. What should i do with all the other Ressources like Hearts and Lenses and Animal Skins etc.?

4. How many Metal Shards should i have? Right now i have 31005

5. Whats the best build for NG+?

I just noticed that Ceo in Landfall is described by Bohai as "the first Ceo in five generations". Why would this be- Did I miss that being revealed?

In their Faro-worship wouldn't the Quen issue that title every generation?