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Horizon Zero Dawn SPOILERS Thread

sectionse7en

Neo Member
Absolutely loved this game. Passed me by due to Breath of the Wild but glad I got around to playing.

I especially loved the little touches in quests - if you start a fetch quest and you already have the item, Aloy will cut to the chase and hand it over.

Other touches that really resonated with me is how character dialogue changes. Towards the end before I entered the Zero Dawn facility, I stopped and did Traitor's Bounty and Queen's Gambit, killing Bahavas and saving Itamen. This meant when Aloy wakes up in the sun ring and is taunted by Helis, it changed his dialogue to reflect the loss of Bahavas and Itamen. I was impressed that the devs went to the effort to include that dialogue when only a small percentage of players will trigger it. The game is full of small moments like that.

Reminded me a lot of Mass Effect 1's story with the parallel stories told in the present and distant past. Both told extremely well. Can't wait for more.
 

shiba5

Member
I love this game so much. I can't wait for that expansion to hit. This thread just reminded me that I posted a video of a funny glitch that happened to me toward the end:

https://youtu.be/xBP9GIxjJqo

"Are you okay?"

This is awesome.

Absolutely loved this game. Passed me by due to Breath of the Wild but glad I got around to playing.

I especially loved the little touches in quests - if you start a fetch quest and you already have the item, Aloy will cut to the chase and hand it over.

Other touches that really resonated with me is how character dialogue changes. Towards the end before I entered the Zero Dawn facility, I stopped and did Traitor's Bounty and Queen's Gambit, killing Bahavas and saving Itamen. This meant when Aloy wakes up in the sun ring and is taunted by Helis, it changed his dialogue to reflect the loss of Bahavas and Itamen. I was impressed that the devs went to the effort to include that dialogue when only a small percentage of players will trigger it. The game is full of small moments like that.

Reminded me a lot of Mass Effect 1's story with the parallel stories told in the present and distant past. Both told extremely well. Can't wait for more.

Another one: When you first poke around in Olin's house in Meridian, you can find his family portrait on the wall. If you rescue him and reunite him with his family, he goes back to The Claim with them. The portrait will be gone when you go back to his house at the end of the game. I thought that was a really nice touch.
 
Finished the game a couple weeks back and finally finished reading through this entire thread. First off, WOW. Fantastic story. It's so heartwrenching yet beautiful at the same time. It's one of those stories that I just keep thinking about even though it's been so long since I finished.

Something I hoped to see brought up in this thread but didn't though - one of the quest datapoints mentions an event at the Dallas Bubble, are there any other references to this in the game? I'm curious what went down there.

For reference:
And you don't say anything about the news I pass on! The containment zone, the re-breathers, the rioting, 1Earth--what happened in the Dallas Bubble, Ames, that wasn't the robots!
Please Reply!
FROM: Roshana Guliyev
TO: Sgt. Guliyev
SUBJECT: Please reply!
STATUS: Rejected
 

shiba5

Member
Finished the game a couple weeks back and finally finished reading through this entire thread. First off, WOW. Fantastic story. It's so heartwrenching yet beautiful at the same time. It's one of those stories that I just keep thinking about even though it's been so long since I finished.

Something I hoped to see brought up in this thread but didn't though - one of the quest datapoints mentions an event at the Dallas Bubble, are there any other references to this in the game? I'm curious what went down there.

For reference:

Please Reply!
FROM: Roshana Guliyev
TO: Sgt. Guliyev
SUBJECT: Please reply!
STATUS: Rejected

I found 100% of the data logs and never saw it mentioned again. Piqued my interest as well.
 

Venture

Member
Finished the game a couple weeks back and finally finished reading through this entire thread. First off, WOW. Fantastic story. It's so heartwrenching yet beautiful at the same time. It's one of those stories that I just keep thinking about even though it's been so long since I finished.

Something I hoped to see brought up in this thread but didn't though - one of the quest datapoints mentions an event at the Dallas Bubble, are there any other references to this in the game? I'm curious what went down there.

For reference:

Please Reply!
FROM: Roshana Guliyev
TO: Sgt. Guliyev
SUBJECT: Please reply!
STATUS: Rejected
Just my speculation: The Dallas Bubble was some sort of shelter set up for civilians after the atmosphere started to go. Some large scale riots took place there with a lot of casualties and the government/military tried to cover it up by blaming it on machines.
 
That's what I figured as well, seems there was a lot of government coverups ongoing during that time.

I think with the sequel/DLC they won't find themselves running out of ideas for different stories they could tell from the Faro Plague apocalypse. My favorite part of the game was listening to the quest audio points and reading the quest text entries. So much emotion tied up in humanity and the world being pushed to total extinction.

I would really love another story similar to the Vantages. That story-line really got to me.
 

SaintR

Member
Hey guys, trying to complete my text quest datapoints. Missing a single one (#34) that I would've gotten in Sobeck's office but it's missing since the table that it'd be on is overturned cause of Eclipse bombing. After some googling found that called "Artemis" and that this issue was to be fixed by patch 1.21. I have the latest patch after that and I can't find this thing. Should I email guerila support?
 
Hey guys, trying to complete my text quest datapoints. Missing a single one (#34) that I would've gotten in Sobeck's office but it's missing since the table that it'd be on is overturned cause of Eclipse bombing. After some googling found that called "Artemis" and that this issue was to be fixed by patch 1.21. I have the latest patch after that and I can't find this thing. Should I email guerila support?

I had that happen to me, What i did to make it appear was Go out and save it in the nearest Camp fire and then reload your save, It should make it appear when you go back to that area, That's what i did and it appeared after the reload
 

SaintR

Member
I had that happen to me, What i did to make it appear was Go out and save it in the nearest Camp fire and then reload your save, It should make it appear when you go back to that area, That's what i did and it appeared after the reload

Shit that actually worked! Woke up and tried it before I headed out to work lol. Thanks 🙏🏼
 

Haunted

Member
Loved pretty much every piece of the backstory except for the concept of Hades. Big bad should've just been the faro swarm being reawakened by clueless humans.

That the smartest scientists on earth all agree on building another sentient robot subroutine that can exterminate life on earth when that's basically exactly what happened the first time around might just be the dumbest thing I've seen.

and of course it went wrong

again



edit: small nitpick in an otherwise really well thought out lore/world backstory. Love how they went really detailed with the explanations, piecing it all together with a detailed timeline and believable explanation for every event happening and every decision made along the way (except building hades).
 

Venture

Member
Loved pretty much every piece of the backstory except for the concept of Hades. Big bad should've just been the faro swarm being reawakened by clueless humans.

That the smartest scientists on earth all agree on building another sentient robot subroutine that can exterminate life on earth when that's basically exactly what happened the first time around might just be the dumbest thing I've seen.

and of course it went wrong

again



edit: small nitpick in an otherwise really well thought out lore/world backstory. Love how they went really detailed with the explanations, piecing it all together with a detailed timeline and believable explanation for every event happening and every decision made along the way (except building hades).
Hades and the other subroutines aren't sentient. At least they weren't until the outside signal interfered. The Faro plague probably wasn't sentient either for that matter. Not sure that changes your point about how dangerous Hades was though. But it was meant as a check against something going wrong with Gaia, the only true AI. ZD only had one shot at this and they had to try and plan for every contingency.
 
Finally finished... It's been a long time since a game had me this engrossed. Flashbacks to my fondest memories of Morrowind and Mass Effect.

I went in blank, hadn't even seen the trailers and didn't follow the threads because I didn't own a PS4 until recently. So I was blown away by the way the story unfolds and never loses sight of its characters. The world building is great but also dark as the seventh circle of hell; some of the mid-game revelations are deeply disturbing the longer you think about them. But they aren't just there for the sake of grimdark, these themes make the optimism and compassion of Aloy even more heroic and you're fighting to save a world that feels genuinely fragile and worth the effort.

Countless small touches like vists to Rost's grave or GAIA's Metal Flower monuments to her creator add so much poignancy to a game that would have worked fine without them.

Now back to New Game+.
 

uocooper

Member
Finally finished... It's been a long time since a game had me this engrossed. Flashbacks to my fondest memories of Morrowind and Mass Effect.

Now back to New Game+.

I'm so glad they added the new game + option. I had around 80 hours on my play through because I enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny in the game and spent a crazy amount of time in photo mode. That and I was just having a ton of fun playing the game. I'm not in a hurry to hop back in just yet but I do want to give it another go in a year or two.
 
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