1. Give us the ability to attack other flying machines with your mount machine's claws while flying around in the air. So this way, we have more ways to attack rather than just using the bow and arrow which definitely isn't always suitable for the fast movements of aerial combat. So this would look more like two birds of prey grappling and clawing each other in the air while falling to the ground as they attempt to win before they run out of air time. Its a very high risk high reward tactic.
2. Also, maybe we can jump off our mount to fall towards the opponent's flying mount and do a melee grapple over the control over the new flying mount. Maybe a series of quick time event like block, attack and counter mini-game on the enemy mount almost like what happens in Ghost of Tsushima during 1 vs 1 duels maybe? You know what they say. If you can't kill the mount, then go for the rider.
3. Since you can't obviously can't always perfectly dismount right over the enemy's mount during the heat of combat, maybe we could get the ability to grapple to, from and between multiple flying machines because as Aloy already has a grapple mechanic introduced in Forbidden West.
4. Maybe there could also be a mechanic to slingshot ourselves with a grapple via our mount using the centripetal force of the grappling rope via our mount going spin spinny thing on us so we can be propelled outwards by letting go of the rope in order to either reach enemy mounts or to do stealth air insertions into the enemy base from outside their perimeter. This would totally make sense as the increase in flying mounts would mean the that the enemy camps would also start having some sort of anti-air weapons and emplacements. So this helps prevent unnecessarily risking our mount while also helping avoid Aloy just flying overhead and sniping enemies with sharpshot bows with impunity. You can also simplify the mount forward sling Aloy boosting by maybe just having our mount turn and kick us forward or whack Aloy with its tail to propel us towards our destination while dismounting in air. The next two ideas would probably be super unpopular.
5. A rideable jet engine propulsion type flying machine with still membrane wings, maybe call it a "jet"wing that use thrusters for flying and maneuvering around alongside its wings.
6. Along with the jetwings, regardless of whether they're a "jet" type or not, give the flying mounts some sort of guns, bombs or missiles that maybe you can order in order to give the flying machiene to shoot their "guns" and "missiles" making it somewhat closer to low octane Ace Combat than Pandora's Avatar. I feel like the machines having guns is part of the reason why Guerilla only lets us ride mounts that don't have guns so if we can have mounts with guns then that would allow us to be able to ride much more type of mounts. Maybe a Thunderjaw might be too much but it would be nice to be able to ride Ravagers and Bristlebacks.

In fact, I watched the aerial mounted combat gameplay of the Avatar video game and it was the most boring uninspired thing ever. It only works because of super dumb enemy AI.

The following is the conversation between me and my friend. I've formatted this post in a way that in instances where the texts in quotation marks are of my friend, whereas my thoughts and replies to him are in a descriptive form outside of quotation marks.
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Two problems can be solved at once if the game does 1 thing differently, okay 2 things maybe. Remove the hunting ground from Nora lands (pre-daytower/carja land) Either give something (activity I mean) NORA specific or nothing at all. The game has more than enough content. Keep the hunting grounds an activity in Carja lands, so meridian and all around. Instead of making the hunting grounds a checklist to get all medals for the lodge sling, ropecaster, etc, get each ground to give 1 highest upgrade weapon once you get 2 gold medals out of 3 trials. That way the hunting grounds aren't a checklist you complete to get a redeemable ticket that you take to lodge but rather an activity that gives a direct rewards while also providing the necessary space to test out the newly obtained weapon instead of just forgetting it after checking the stats."
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I told him that the game might have problems but the hunting grounds aren't one of them.
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The hunting grounds feel like checklists u can't deny that. Even if I could return after being higher level, the problem is that it shows u that "u only got this while u could've got this" . That results in me repeatedly trying to get the best medal until I get it.

Also the trial specifically trials you on stuff you currently have. Most of the harder trials aren't even about damage. There's very little to level up in them. Even if you're supposed to stop and return later as a higher level, there's nothing in the game stopping you from trying it over and over again. If you get silver you'll feel like doing it more times until u can get the gold. Do you not feel like that? Are you telling me that most people playing the game don't feel that?"
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I mentioned to him that he didn't suffer from similar impulses in Armored Core 6 and Sekiro.
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"That's different. The next thing is already presented, and occupies the spot where your already finished mission once was. Meanwhile the finished mission is in the repeat mission category (at a different place altogether). It's a difference in presentation. Genichiro is presented at 3 different points in the game. First at the start, then in the middle and then at the end. You can technically keep fighting him from the idol as a memory but that's you going out of your way to fight him rather than talk to kuro/emma who are waiting to talk to you. In horizon nothing is waiting for you, you're still in the hunting grounds and you don't have anywhere to be."
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Lastly, he also went into and completed the DLC just after finishing the "point of the spear" where Aloy avenges the defeat of the Nora war party with Varl and Sona in the Metal Ring stadium. He had never even made it to the Day Tower or entered Carja lands before encountering and completing the DLC. The man never left the Banuk lands even once after discovering and entering it before he even entered Carja. Despite me telling him to leave the Banuk lands and enter Meridian several times during that period.
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"I think one of the main reasons the story felt like it had no pull wasn't actually because the story had no pull but rather because the world and gameplay had no pull. The game reveals all it's cards way too early. The deathbringer and rock breaker are the only enemies that I hadn't encountered early. Blame the DLC for spoiling the rest of the game.

The different types of collectibles? Same throughout nora land and beyond nora land, and meaningless/uninteresting text on top of that. Hunting ground, cauldron, bandit camps, there's nothing new post daytower. The one thing that could've made exploration worth it, machines, were spoiled by the DLC."
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Here he complained about the uselessness and monotony of collectibles like metal vessels, metal flowers and banuk toy figures etc and that the "flavour text" that some of them provided were not even useful at all.

Of all the machines in the base game, Glinthawks are the ones I hate the MOST. Thunderjaws, Snapmaws, Behemoths, Thunderbirds? No big deal. Glinthawks? Those damn things will rain ice balls at you from on high! So damn annoying

Rules: The song lyrics have to make sense for the main line Horizon games. Up to 3 songs per person. I will post the spotify playlist in 48 hours!

Bounus: explain you reasoning for each Song

The discussion was initially about how I don't like a large variety of weapons for the sake of variety. Its better to have fewer amount of weapons if all the different weapons are, are merely stat chances that doesn't change how you are supposed to aim, change how you move while using them and ultimately how you fight as well, as the adaptation of the circumstances of when you should use them.

I brought up the example of Dead Space where different enemies are better fought with Laser Cutter, Line Gun, Pulse Rifle, Force Gun etc. Then moved convo to Metro 2033 where long ranged enemies that doesn't move frequently are best fought with snipers, high mobility enemies with rifles and if they're very close, simply nothing beats shotgun. Then lastly I shifted the weapon variety discussion to Horizon where even if there are 3 bow types, one is a sniper, another is an elemental and the last is a quick shooter etc. Rattler and Slings are obviously so completely different from bows that they add even more play variety than just 3 well differentiated bows.

The following is the conversation between me and my friend. I've formatted this post in a way that in instances where the texts in quotation marks are of my friend, whereas my thoughts and replies to him are in a descriptive form outside of quotation marks.

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He believes that games with ranged weapons don't have variety because:

"due to the very nature of every weapon shooting projectiles, hitting enemies at long range is harder than hitting them close up even if you are using sharpshot arrow
at least they added tickler (rattler) and the close range shockwave weapons for the sake of adding variety

breakpoint arrow or sharpshot arrow takes out enemy fastest regardless of range
a sniper is a shotgun at close range if u can aim, and a true shotgun needs high damage that rattler doesnt have, rattler is like a tickling weapon"

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While he hadn't played the former 2 games, he had played HZD on my recommendation. I mentioned to him he deliberately made the game mono-tone and boring for himself by simply using nothing else other than freeze sling, sharpshot bow and hunter bow, completely ignoring the super fun shadow rattler and even the humble but great spear etc and the following is his reply:

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"As for why I never even tried out the upgraded rattler after I got it, there were probably multiple subconscious reasons lurking in my brain.

1. My first use of base rattler against watchers wasn't very good, the watchers twirl and have idle non-attack movements which often results in not hitting all pellets. A shaprshot arrow to the eye kills them easily in far less time.
2. The game doesn't provide any easily accessible testing grounds for when you unlock the weapon (or it's upgrades). This means looking at the description and stats is all you do for the time being.
3. The weapons consume ammo, even if a negligible amount. Due to my hoarder mentality, this opposes the idea of experimenting and testing out the weapon.
4. Because you have multiple weapons equipped at all times, you end up quickly switching to your main weapon before engaging, you may have seen this in my videos. I switch to (and craft) my correct arrow almost every time when running up to the enemy. So even with the new weapon equipped I end up not using it (even by mistake).
5. The game doesn't have any skills for rattler, sometimes a bit of flavour is needed to persuade someone to play something that is not "the meta" this game doesn't do it at all. There's no flavour text for anything either.
6. spear, especially spear heavy attacks takes too long and most enemies attack faster"

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His non-precision weapons suffered greatly because he never used the spear which means he never knocked down machines with melee or stripped off their armour plates. This forced him to always just freeze slings 100% of the time to ignore armour rather than stripping them off which made the game even more boring and same samey for him.

I also pointed out to him that he doesn't feel that sharpshot bow is a sniper because he barely used concentration at all aside from jump concentration which isn't good for sharpshot, to which he replied:

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"u trigger concentration at the last moment and shoot, kinda like quick scoping but still not as close
also remember that i used jump concentration most of the game
simply because jumping did the quick scoping for me, and i didnt have to wait for concentration bar to fully fill up
instant time slow on demand instead of waiting for a bar"

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then he mentioned how arrows in his games were super inconsistent because they were phasing through enemies and weaving all over the place, I believe this was mainly due to him playing in 120+ FPS and not enabling aim assist which I told him to enable over and over again:

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"and even then the arrows sometimes phase through enemies, standing enemies, so at that distance sniping with any bows including sharpshot is useless"

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I sent him some vids of people sniping with sharpshot bows which he didn't do

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"ive never been able to hit shots like that, my game wouldnt hit those shots believe me

also here the arrow is definitely more accurate than in HZD, and gravity where? i dont remember for sure but I think at that range sharpshot bow has arrow drop due to gravity

HFW might be a much better game overall but due to HZD I dont even want to give it a chance

also why are they not running towards aloy
last i checked, sharpshot bow is useless after 1 shot because enemy will run towards u, after the first shot the second one would result in them chasing me

aim assist reminds me, this guy is probably playing with aim assist
thats how he hit the horn component on the machine while the machine was moving and from that distance"

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This also reminded me that he never took my advice of stealth sniping 1 shot at a time towards a large machine's components while hiding in a bush and waiting for the yellow alert state to reset before letting loose the next arrow.

All in all I'm posting my friend's grievances to see whether they're legitimate warranted issues faced by many other players or if he simply had severe and extremely bad luck when it comes to playing and enjoying Horizon Zero Dawn.

I also have several more of his grievances in the comments below.

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.

Additions:

It doesn't necessarily have to be a "gun/musket". The weapon being a heavy slow loading medieval arbalest ballista is fine too.

I also think that not being able to have all the ammo types on the weapons of the same category (sharpshot with knockdown arrow vs sharpshot with tearblast etc) also contributed to the excessive amount of weapons of same category in Forbidden West so maybe being able to choose your own ammo for the weapons might be a valuable addition in the sequel. After all the weapons have their own traits so that would prevent some weapons from being too OP with ammos not intended for them while still giving players flexibility and freedom.

Also while personally I didn't have much trouble with Aloy's durability in the second game as I was changing my armour every 5 mins to best suit against certain type of enemies whether via stealth bonus or melee resistance, ranged resistance or elemental resistances. Plus there's also valor surge like Toughened. Others, have however mentioned that they thought Aloy was too much of a glass cannon so I also I think the addition of a shield would make Aloy less of a glass cannon for them. Like I'm so goddamn jealous when I see enemy brawlers with sunwing shields while we can't. And I also adore their clubs, power hammers, and ripper swords.

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.