Things I wish I'd known before starting Horizon Zero Dawn.
I finished Horizon Zero Dawn and the Frozen Wilds expansion back in the fall of 2023. I wrote most of this back then but never hit publish.
This is partially a review and partially a list of things that I wish I'd known going into the game. I'll try to avoid any major spoilers...or even minor ones.
Aloy
Aloy is a great main character. The game designers got that part right. She is smart, but she isn't a tank. Stealth is her best weapon. Aloy's interactions with other characters are consistent with her general identity.
You can upgrade Aloy using skill points as the game progresses. You should get enough skill points to acquire the full range of skills by the end of the game. At least, I was only a couple of skills short of the full set by the end. And I didn't really care about those particular skills.
Early on, Aloy discovers a "Focus" that mounts over one ear. She can use the Focus to identify items of interest, follow prints in the earth left by passing people/vehicles, etc. It will also help identify the best places to shoot at the machines.
Story/gameplay
Again, no spoilers. I thought the overall story of the world was well thought out and presented. There were a couple of times when I had questions based on the information that was already revealed and the story answered them in a way that was consistent with the overall game experience.
The game seemed to get incrementally more difficult at a rate that reasonably matched the improvements that were collected (i.e. skills, better weapons, better armor, etc.). By the end of the game, Aloy is a beast within her skill set (i.e. ranged attacks and stealth)
This is an open world. You can interact with and pick up a lot of things. There are tons of goodies sprinkled around. Look around. Explore odd nooks and crannies. There are some nice bonuses hidden in odd places. The game will suggest that you scoot through an area that has lots of alcoves. Check out those alcoves. Look for handholds that allow you to climb to an unusual area. You will be rewarded for looking around.
Components
You will pick up components as you travel through the world. Sometimes they are on machines you kill. Sometimes they are on people you have killed. Sometimes you harvest them off of the animals you hunt. Sometimes they are just sitting around. Pick up everything. You can sell the stuff that isn't useful. Never sell items that can be used to make things for your weapons (primarily different arrows and bombs).
But you can sell machine hearts and eyes without worrying about it. If a quest requires a machine heart or eye, then you will be tasked with killing that machine as part of the quest. (There might be one side quest where you need a heart/eye, and will have to go hunt a machine that has the needed heart/eye as part of the quest.) I finished the game hauling around a small fortune in machine hearts and eyes.
While the number of slots for carrying components is limited, you can hold an unlimited number of reward boxes. Those boxes will hold all sorts of useful things. Don't be in a rush to open and consume the content of those reward boxes. Let those components sit in the boxes until you run short of something.
There is a set of power rings that you can collect. They help you access certain areas. As far as I know, the number of power rings matches the number of places where you use them. There aren't any spares lying about. They are frequently found in those out-of-the-way locations I mentioned above.
One of the areas holds a suit of powered armor. One of those rings is only accessible towards the very end of the game. So you get a nice boost right before the final boss fight if you can unlock that armor. It takes 5 rings to access the armor. I found 4 of them. The last one I would have found if I'd been following the advice above. There are handholds leading up near the end of a mission. I got the quest complete message and didn't bother following those handholds to a platform that had that final ring. My mistake. I had to climb that tower a second time to get the ring.
Quests/navigation
The game presents you with a series of quests along the main storyline as well as sidequests. You select a quest and the map will point you towards a location along with a presumed path to get there. Do not follow the path. It will inevitably lead you straight into a pack of machines or bad NPCs. Either one will attack you. Instead, look around for the best place to use stealth to move through an area.
Move parallel to the path the game is indicating. You will avoid getting jumped and may end up being able to break up the threat into something that is more easily managed. Aloy's strength is stealth. Use that by skirting an area to identify all of the threats. If you go barging in the front door, you are going to get put on your ass.
You will get mini-quests when you pick up a new weapon. The mini-quests are supposed to be tutorials of a sort. Completing those quests will give you experience points towards increasing your level which gets you skill points. The only rub is that you have to select that mini-quest to get the experience points. The game won't give you credit unless the mini-quest is active. I finished the game with 8 or 9 mini-quests left undone. Do the mini-quests. Get the experience points so you can get more skill points. It's worth it to pause the main storyline for a little bit.
Quick travel is available to specific locations. You have to craft a pack to allow you to travel. Eventually, you will be able to buy a pack that allows unlimited travel. Buy the pack.
One last word on quests. Don't be too hasty about finishing a quest. There are lots of them where you kill a bunch of machines and then report to someone. The dead machines will disappear after you report to that person. Make sure you harvest everything you can before heading for the person and the cut scene that ends that quest. I missed out on some parts by reporting in without harvesting all the machine parts.
Weaves
You can collect a special class of components called weaves that offer upgrades to your gear. Some weaves can be added to your armor. Some can be added to your weapons.
In my case, I ended the game with a ton of weaves that could have been sold for shards. The best idea is to keep one or two of the best of any armor weaves and the five (give or take) best of any weapon weaves. You will use more weapons weaves.
Armor
There are lots of options for purchasing armor. You are given a set of armor on 3 different occasions (one that allows you to enter a region incognito, a leader's armor in the Frozen Wilds, and the powered armor mentioned above. I purchased 2 other sets of armor. One set was early on and focused on stealth. The other was better for combat. You can change armor while in the middle of battle. So you can stealth up to a challenge, kill what you can silently, and then switch to something that will absorb the damage better.
In the end, I only used the two sets of armor that I bought and the powered armor. I needed the shards for buying ammo more than buying a new set of armor.
You can improve most armor (except the powered armor) by adding weaves into the slots for weaves. The better the armor, the more slots there are.
Weapons
There are five different types of weapons that you can hold; bow, trapcaster, ropecaster, a type of slingshot, and a spear. Each is available in different levels/qualities. As you move through the map and enter new areas, you gain access to improved versions of each weapon. You can have four different weapons equipped at any time. But you can switch out weapons on a moment's notice, just like changing armor. If you are in a fight and one weapon isn't working, then try a different one.
There are three different subtypes of bow. Each one launches a different set of arrows. Each arrow has a unique quality. For example, one arrow will infect machines and people with corruption which causes them to attack one another. Do not overlook that tool in your..ummm...quiver. I regularly had at least two bows active at all times. Hit your targets with one to do one type of damage and switch to another to finish them off.
For example, if a machine is subject to extra fire damage, then hit them with flame arrows until the meter fills, then hit them with the high damage arrows for an extra bit of punch!
The trapcaster allows you to set a trap. Imagine that! Traps are basically tripwires with different effects when they go off. You can't set them off, but your targets can. I believe you can get hurt if you are in the affected area when the machines set them off.
The ropecaster will allow you to tie down machines. The bigger the machines, the more ropes that are needed to hold it down. I didn't use the ropecaster until very late in the game. Using it made it somewhat easier to deal with bigger machines. I regret not trying it sooner.
There are two different types of slingshot. Each has a different group of ammo. Both are useful.
The last equipable weapon is the spear. It is largely useless unless you are hidden in a bush. If an enemy sees you and charges, then fighting with the spear is a bad choice. Get some distance and use your bow. You will collect a ton of spear weaves before you acquire a spear that has an upgrade slot. Keep the best of the weaves, and sell the rest. I really wish I'd know about how few spear weaves I'd need as I carried a bunch of them for a long time.
There are also other weapons that you can throw or drop like a mine. There are some places where it is useful to set up a bunch of mines before engaging with your targets. You won't set one off, but they will if they try to run through your minefield to get you.
Crafting
Mostly, you will end up crafting ammo for your weapons. As with the armor and weapons, you can stop in the middle of a battle to craft additional ammo. There were a few boss battles where I needed to craft ammo in the middle of the battle. Keep extra components on hand just in case.
The crafting components mostly come from machines or trees. Early on, it is easy to run short of something you need to craft ammo. But if you keep all of the components you harvest, you will eventually have enough to always keep your packs full.
Modifications
You can also modify your carrying packs to increase the amount of ammo you carry. This is where it becomes important to kill every animal you find. Some of them will drop skins or bones or something else that can be used to increase the capacity of your packs/quivers. That includes rats and fish. I was never able to fully upgrade all of my packs but didn't really need the extra space by the end of the game.
This was one of the more frustrating dynamics in the game. Fish and rats are hard to hit. So upgrades that need rat bones/skins or fish bones/skins are harder to achieve. Also, not every kill will drop every component. You have to hit a few rats to get enough bones/skins to matter.
You can kill enough raccoons and turkeys and whatnot pretty easily just wandering around. But some animals were harder to find/harvest which made acquiring the right drops a bit of a slog. Also, I think how much damage you do can influence the drop from the dead animal. At least, it seemed like I got better drops if I used higher damage arrows, or multiple arrows so that the animal ended up being super duper dead instead of just dead.
Machines
Each machine has strengths and weaknesses. Use your Focus to identify them. It will also point out the soft points that make it easier to kill the machine. Put your arrows in the places that hurt the machine the most.
Each machine has its own defensive strategy as well as a unique attack. Adjust your attack strategy to your advantage.
Early on, you obtain the ability to tame some machines. You eventually learn to tame a longer list of machines. This is helpful in that the tamed machines will fight for/with you. Also you can ride tamed machines. Mostly, I rode weaker tamed machines as it was difficult to isolate a strong machine.
Animals
Animals are a great source of food/meat. You can use that to regain health. You can also craft packs to allow fast travel. They are a source of parts for expanding your pack capacity. I don't recall ever encountering a hostile animal that did me much harm.
Combat
Combat is combat. However, each enemy group only has a limited range of interest. So if you run away, they will only follow for a while before returning to a non-combat routine. You can sneak back up and re-engage them.
Use your Focus to locate enemies and the weaknesses of the machines. Select the weapons that will exploit those weaknesses.
Whenever possible, get as high as possible. It is generally easier to shoot at enemies from an elevated position. Frequently, they cannot reach you to counterattack. Or at least, the higher elevation offers more cover from their attacks. Also, being up high tends to funnel your targets into a narrow area. That makes it easier to hit something.
There are several boss battles where the game purposefully makes sure that you can't take advantage of an elevated position.
Ending
The game largely exists within a world of science. Everything can be explained as technology run amok.
Except the ending. A piece of software goes floating on the wind to set up the sequel. At this point, science is going out the window as we enter a fantasyland where software is a glowing particle that is transmitted on the wind to be captured in a lamp. It's a modest gripe, but it was an important story element to me.
NPC's
NPC's are another weak point for me. Aloy is not a tank. She doesn't do CQC well. She does do stealth and ranged attacks very well.
Later in the game, there are incidents where the NPC's engaged in CQC celebrate Aloy's arrival as saving the day. Why? A better approach would have been "we will keep them busy while you work them over with your bow". That evenly values both Aloy and the NPC's roles. Both bring something equally valuable to the fight even if they are different skill sets.
I eventually found the diversity parade a bit tiring. The effort to insert every flavor of representation got in the way of telling the story.
As an example, some of the tribes were about as multi-culti as can be. These small tribes existed for hundreds of years, but never interbred to the point of reducing unique racial features? Nope. Not buying it.
The Frozen Wilds was better on that point. All of the people in that region were visually similar. There were people there from other regions, but they looked like they came from somewhere else. The representation made sense within the narrative of the story.
Then there are the omnipresent capable and competent female warrior leaders and the dearth of capable/competent male warrior leaders. Or at least, the only capable/competent male warrior leaders were all enemies. All of the good male NPC warriors were a bit goofy.
And then there is this one vendor who made my skin crawl with all the "my lovely lady" comments that he made toward Aloy.
The game is a long grind. It is worth it overall. But sometimes those small things get old the further along in the game you are.
Horizon Zero Dawn is worth the effort. If you play video games, then give this one a try. 4.5 stars.
