Horizon (video game series)

Horizon
File:Horizon video game series logo.png Horizon series logo
Genre(s)	Action role-playing game
Developer(s)	Guerrilla Games Firesprite
Publisher(s)	Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platform(s)	PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Microsoft Windows
First release	Horizon Zero Dawn February 28, 2017
Latest release	Horizon Forbidden West February 18, 2022

Horizon is a series of action role-playing games developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and Microsoft Windows. The series follows the adventures of Aloy, a young huntress in a world overrun by machines, who sets out to uncover her past.

The series consists of two main games: Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West, alongside a spin-off VR title Horizon Call of the Mountain. A live-action television series based on the games is in the works by PlayStation Productions for Netflix.

Plot

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic United States, between the states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, California and Nevada in the 31st century. Humans live in scattered, primitive tribes with varying levels of technological development. Their technologically advanced predecessors are remembered as the "Old Ones". Large robotic creatures, known as "machines", dominate the Earth. For the most part, they peacefully coexist with humans, who occasionally hunt them for parts. However, a phenomenon known as the "Derangement" has caused machines to become more aggressive towards humans, and larger and deadlier machines have begun to appear. There are four tribes that are prominently featured: the Nora, the Banuk, the Carja and the Oseram. The Nora are fierce hunter-gatherers who live in the mountains and worship nature as the "All-Mother". The Carja are desert-dwelling city builders who worship the Sun. The Banuk consists of wandering clans made up of hunters and shamans who live in snowy mountains and worship the machines and their "songs". The Oseram are tinkerers and salvagers known for their metalworking, brewing, and talent as warriors.

Gameplay

Horizon is an action role-playing game played from a third-person perspective. The player controls Aloy, a hunter in a world populated by dangerous, animalistic machines. In an open world, she explores a post-apocalyptic version of the United States.

Aloy can dodge, sprint, slide, or roll to evade her enemies' advances. Hiding in foliage to ambush nearby enemies can ensure immediate takedowns. Swimming may reach enemies stealthily or places otherwise unreachable on foot. She is able to hack a selection of machines with the Override Tool, some of which can be turned into makeshift mounts. Explorable ruins called Cauldrons unlock additional machines to override. Three categories occur in the skill tree: "Prowler" concerns stealth, "Brave" improves combat, and "Forager" increases healing and gathering capabilities. To level up, Aloy attains experience points from individual kills and completing quests. Upgrades in each category result in more adept use of the skills learned, with "Prowler" leading to silent takedowns, "Brave" to aiming a bow in slow motion, and "Forager" to an enlarged medicine pouch.

Games

Main series

Release timeline

2017	Horizon Zero Dawn
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022	Horizon Forbidden West
2023
2024
TBA	Horizon Call of the Mountain

Aggregate review scores

Game	Metacritic
Horizon Zero Dawn	89/100
Horizon Forbidden West	88/100

Horizon Zero Dawn

The first game in the series, released in 2017. Aloy (Ashly Burch) is cast out from the Nora tribe at birth and raised by a fellow outcast named Rost (JB Blanc). As a child (Ava Potter), Aloy obtains a Focus, an augmented reality device that gives her special perceptive abilities. Aloy becomes curious about her origins and is told by Rost that if she wins the Proving, a competition to earn the right to become a member of the Nora, the tribe's Matriarchs might concede this information. Aloy spends some years training in combat and survival under Rost's instruction.

After coming of age, Aloy takes part in the Proving; she wins the competition, but the Nora are attacked by masked cultists. Rost sacrifices himself to save Aloy from their leader, Helis (Crispin Freeman). When Aloy awakens, the Matriarchs explain that Aloy was found as an infant before a sealed door within the Nora's sacred mountain. The Matriarchs name Aloy a "Seeker", allowing her to leave their lands in pursuit of the cultists. Aloy meets Oseram member Olin (Chook Sibtain), who informs Aloy that the cultists are part of a splinter Carja faction called the Eclipse, and indicates that Aloy was targeted due to her resemblance to an Old World scientist named Elisabet Sobeck (also voiced by Burch). Aloy locates the ruined corporate campus of Faro Automated Solutions and discovers that the Old World was destroyed nearly a thousand years ago after Faro lost control of its automated peacekeeper military robots. The robots, which could self-replicate and consumed biomass, overran the planet and consumed the biosphere, stripping Earth of life. Zero Dawn, a project spearheaded by Sobeck, was initiated to create an automated terraforming system to deactivate the robots and restore life to Earth.

Aloy is contacted by Sylens (Lance Reddick), a secretive figure interested in uncovering the fate of the Old Ones. Aloy learns that Sobeck was sent to a decommissioned Orbital Launch Base to complete Zero Dawn, which is located under the Citadel, the centre of Eclipse power. Inside the base, Aloy learns that Zero Dawn was a vast underground system of databases, factories, and cloning facilities controlled by a single artificial intelligence, GAIA (Lesley Ewen). Once all life had been extinguished, GAIA developed a countermeasure to deactivate the Faro robots and build its own to restore the Earth's biosphere. Once the planet was habitable again, GAIA's next goal was to reseed life on Earth based on stored DNA and teach the first human clones not to repeat their predecessors' mistakes. However, APOLLO, the subsystem designed to teach humanity, was sabotaged by Faro's founder and CEO Theodore Faro in a fit of nihilism, and the first humans were reduced to a tribal, subsistence society. The Eclipse are secretly controlled by HADES (John Gonzalez), another of GAIA's subsystems designed to enact controlled extinction if the outcome of Zero Dawn was not favorable for human existence. Reaching Sobeck's office, Aloy obtains a registry to give her access to the door beneath the Nora's mountain. She is captured by Helis and sentenced to death at the Citadel, but escapes with the help of Sylens. Aloy helps the Nora fight off the Eclipse and unlocks the mountain's door.

She finds a recording from GAIA, revealing that a signal of unknown origin caused HADES to activate and seize control of her functions; as a last resort, GAIA self-destructed in order to stop HADES. Without GAIA to maintain the terraforming process, the entire system began to break down. As a contingency plan, GAIA created a clone of Sobeck in the form of Aloy, in the hope that she would find GAIA's message, destroy HADES, and restore GAIA's functions. Aloy learns that Sobeck sacrificed her life to ensure the Faro robots would not find GAIA. Aloy manages to obtain the master override to destroy HADES. Sylens reveals that he was the founder of the Eclipse, originally tempted by HADES' promises of knowledge. They surmise that HADES intends to send a signal to reactivate the Faro robots to extinguish life on Earth. Aloy kills Helis and helps fight off machines, before stabbing HADES and activating the master override, ending the war. She journeys to Sobeck's old home, finding her corpse, and mourns her predecessor. In a post-credits scene, an alive HADES is trapped by Sylens, who intends to interrogate HADES to find out who sent the signal that activated it.

Horizon Forbidden West

The second game in the series, released in 2022 as a followup to the first game's story. Six months after the defeat of HADES, Aloy searches for a backup of GAIA to reverse the planet's degrading biosphere. Aloy and her friend Varl search a facility once belonging to Far Zenith, a company specializing in space colonization; they find a GAIA backup, but it has been sabotaged. Sylens contacts Aloy, having stolen GAIA's subsystem HADES, and asks to meet her in the Forbidden West region.

Crossing into the Forbidden West, Aloy finds the ruling Tenakth tribe are in the midst of a civil war between Chief Hekarro, who advocates peace with the Carja, and the rebel leader Regalla, who wishes to continue the war against them. Aloy tracks Sylens to a facility where she finds HADES badly damaged, and permanently deletes it. She recovers a GAIA backup that is missing its subordinate functions, and resolves to restore it. A group of humans arrive, exhibiting futuristic technology that grant them invulnerability, consisting of their leader Gerard, his lieutenant Tilda, enforcer Erik, and a clone of Elisabet Sobeck named Beta. They take a second GAIA backup, while Aloy escapes them.

Varl reunites with Aloy and takes her to the Utaru tribe. A member named Zo guides Aloy to a control center where GAIA's subsystem MINERVA has hidden itself. Aloy rejoins MINERVA with GAIA, who locates the other subsystems AETHER, DEMETER, and POSEIDON. GAIA advises Aloy to retrieve them before attempting to capture the more advanced HEPHAESTUS. GAIA also reveals the extinction signal that triggered HADES originated from the Sirius system; Aloy suspects that it was sent by the futuristic humans.

Aloy recovers AETHER after helping Hekarro advance in the war. She later tracks down Beta, who informs Aloy that Far Zenith has since acquired subsystems ELEUTHIA, ARTEMIS, and APOLLO, but she has stolen their GAIA backup. She reveals that the humans are colonists who fled Earth during its global extinction, having managed to extend their natural lifespans. After their colony on Sirius collapsed, the humans returned to Earth to use GAIA through Beta's genetic make-up for their own recolonization.

In Las Vegas, Aloy retrieves POSEIDON, before journeying to California to find DEMETER. She encounters the Quen, a foreign tribe who are attempting to solve ecological crises in their homeland. Aloy helps tribe member Alva with acquiring data, while recovering DEMETER. GAIA devises a way to capture HEPHAESTUS, but requires Ted Faro's access code. Aloy and Quen leader Ceo travel to San Francisco and enter Faro's bunker. They discover that Faro has kept himself alive for the past millennium using gene therapy, but has severely mutated. Ceo orders his men to kill Faro, which triggers a failsafe that destroys the bunker; Aloy and Alva escape, while Ceo is killed.

With Ted's clearance, Aloy uses GAIA to trap HEPHAESTUS, but Far Zenith arrives. Erik kills Varl and recaptures Beta while Gerard steals GAIA, but Tilda helps Aloy escape. Tilda explains that she was romantically-involved with Elisabet and, having been inspired by Aloy, wishes to stop Far Zenith. She further reveals that Sylens has been supporting the Tenakth rebels to use them against Far Zenith. Aloy refuses to sacrifice the Tenakth and resolves to defeat Regalla herself; she thwarts Regalla's attack on Hekarro and chooses to either execute or persuade Regalla to join her.

Aloy and her companions assault Far Zenith's base, with Regalla (if spared) sacrificing herself. Beta releases HEPHAESTUS into Far Zenith's network, allowing it to manufacture machines that attack Far Zenith's army. Sylens disables Far Zenith's personal defences, allowing Aloy and Zo to kill Erik, while Tilda kills Gerard. Aloy and Beta learn that the Far Zenith colony was destroyed by Nemesis, a failed mind-uploading experiment they created; Far Zenith fled from Nemesis and hoped to steal GAIA to colonize a new planet. Nemesis also sent the extinction signal to Earth, and is en route to destroy the planet. Tilda tries to force Aloy to escape with her, but Aloy refuses and is forced to kill Tilda. Sylens reveals that HADES told him about Nemesis, and plans to escape Earth, but has a change of heart and decides to aid Aloy against Nemesis. Aloy's companions disperse to spread the warning of Nemesis, while Aloy and Beta reactivate GAIA.

Other appearances

The series is referenced in other video games where Aloy appears as a playable character in the PlayStation 4 version of Monster Hunter: World and makes a cameo appearance in Astro's Playroom. Aloy was added to Fortnite Battle Royale on April 15, 2021, for the Chapter 2, Season 6 "Primal" event. A limited time "Aloy Cup" was available to PlayStation players, while a "Team Up!" mode with Lara Croft from Tomb Raider was added. She also got an extra style called Ice Hunter, which is only available to players that own a PlayStation 5. but can be used across all consoles when unlocked. In September 2021, Aloy was given out as a free character for PS4 and PS5 players of the game Genshin Impact, while players on other platforms received her for free in October 2021. In the game, she is a Bow user of the Cryo element.

Other media

Television series

In May 2022, it was announced that a streaming television series adaptation is in development at Netflix.

External links

• Official website