The release of Horizon Forbidden West marks the long awaited return of Aloy five years after Horizon Zero Dawn launched, and many may need a refresher on how the narrative has shaped up thus far. Zero Dawn should be played before Forbidden West, but that practically doubles the time commitment for the already expansive game the sequel can be when accounting for all of the side content. Some may have simply never become interested in the first leg of Aloy's journey, and others likely forgot many of the key story beats. Regardless of whether or not Zero Dawn has been played before, here's a rundown of all the major info players will need going into Forbidden West.
The Horizon series takes players to the 31st century, with Zero Dawn beginning in the year 3040. Though not quite to scale, Zero Dawn is set in the region of the United States formerly known as Colorado and Utah, with parts of Arizona. The Frozen Wilds DLC extends the game world into Wyoming, expanding on one of the best open world designs of recent years. When players enter the dire future of Horizon, human civilization has regressed to a tribal state. The lush wilderness is also teeming with mechanical life - massive, ancient machines vaguely resembling animals.
Aloy belongs to the Nora tribe, a matriarchal, isolationist society sequestered in its territory known as the Sacred Land. The Nora are distrustful of the Carja, a more advanced tribe to the west, but the chief danger to Nora society is the now violent machines which turned hostile roughly 20 years prior to the main events of Zero Dawn in a phenomenon known as the Derangement. These machines are the primary enemies fought by the player in Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, but there are hostile humans too, for which Forbidden West has improved Zero Dawn's melee combat. The Nora are likely to be a rare sight in Horizon Forbidden West, which will take place in the eponymous region lying westward from Carja territory. Players will explore from the deserts of Utah and Nevada to the Pacific coast in California, with the ruins of San Fransisco being a major landmark.
Aloy & Project Zero Dawn
Much of Horizon Zero Dawn is spent uncovering the mysteries of the Derangement and Aloy's own origins. As a newborn, Aloy was found inside of the Sacred Mountain, which the Nora believe houses their deity, the All-Mother. Some believed Aloy to be a blessing from the All-Mother, others viewed the infant as a curse and Aloy was subsequently given to Rost, an outcast, to be raised. Early in her life, Aloy found a device called a Focus, an advanced piece of technology from the past that displays information about the surrounding environment in holographic projections. Although Horizon Forbidden West's gameplay explores new features, the Focus is integral to how players (and by extension, Aloy) interact with the game world.
Following a massacre at Aloy's rite of passage (the Proving) to be accepted into the Nora tribe, in which Rost was killed by members of a cult known as the Eclipse, Aloy awakens in the Sacred Mountain and is scanned by the door that the Nora worship as the embodiment of the All-Mother. A corruption in the technology denies Aloy entry, but she is granted the rank of Seeker by the Nora Matriarchs so that she may leave the Sacred Lands in an attempt to solve the mystery. The rest of the game is spent investigating the Eclipse and the ruins left by the Old Ones, Zero Dawn's term for the advanced society of the 21st century. Aloy slowly pieces together what happened to the Old Ones, and how humanity was reborn in its current tribal state.
By the end of Horizon Zero Dawn's story, Aloy learns that she was born in the Sacred Mountain, cloned from the genetic material of a 21st century scientist named Elisabet Sobeck as part of an initiative known as Project Zero Dawn. The project was started in response to the Faro Plague, in which combat machines designed by Ted Faro became self-sufficient by consuming biomass in order to multiply. Faro had designed an incredibly complex encryption into his machines, which would take decades to brute force. Realizing that all life on Earth was doomed, Sobeck created an AI, designated GAIA, for the purpose of cracking the Plague's encryption, shutting down the machine swarm, and terraforming the dead Earth and reseeding its organic life.
Sylens & GAIA's Rogue Subordinate Function HADES
Plenty of Zero Dawn characters will return in Horizon Forbidden West, but Sylens is perhaps the most pertinent to the overarching narrative. Presented as a traveller in search of knowledge, Sylens is one of the few others in HZD to also have a Focus. Although he eventually allies with Aloy, Sylens is initially something of an antagonist, in service to one of GAIA's subordinate functions attempting to reactivate the Faro Plague. This subordinate function was known as HADES, and was originally implemented as a failsafe should the terraforming process need to be restarted. At some point, an unknown signal turned all of GAIA's subordinate functions into full-fledged AIs themselves, and HADES attempted to annihilate all life once again per its programming.
GAIA self-destructed in order to prevent HADES from accessing Zero Dawn's terraforming infrastructure. With GAIA gone, another subordinate-function-turned-AI, HEPHAESTUS, was solely in charge of creating the machines used for the terraforming project. HEPHAESTUS recognized that the fledgling human tribes were hunting the Horizon machines that evolve based on player actions, and re-programmed them for self-preservation, thus beginning the Derangement. Without access to GAIA's functions, HADES resolved to reactivate the Faro Plague to accomplish its goals, since the millions of combat robots still lie dormant, buried under the Earth's new growth.
HADES promised Sylens knowledge of advanced, lost subjects like calculus and physics in exchange for his help in surveying the new world. Sylens duped a secessionist group of Carja, known as the Shadow Carja, into worshipping HADES as the manifestation of their deity, the Buried Shadow. The Eclipse cult was founded by Sylens to aid HADES in its conquest of the Carja capital of Meridian, near which lay the Spire, a tower previously used by GAIA to transmit the Faro deactivation codes. This plot would culminate in Horizon Zero Dawn's climactic battle at Meridian, after which HADES had hoped to use the Spire to transmit reactivation codes for the Faro Swarm.
Aloy & Sylens Leave For The Forbidden West
Although he set Zero Dawn's entire conflict in motion, Sylens had been betrayed by HADES prior to the massacre at Aloy's Proving, deeming him no longer useful. Through a Focus Network designed under HADES' direction, Sylens learned of Aloy, and used her to further his knowledge of the Old Ones. After Aloy defeated HADES at Meridian - using the Master Override Sylens provided her - the remnants of the crippled AI are shown being captured by Sylens in HZD's final moments. Now in control of the seemingly harmless AI, Sylens leaves for the Forbidden West to find the origin of the signal which elevated HADES and the other subordinate functions into AIs.
Aloy will encounter Sylens in the sequel, but Horizon Forbidden West's latest story trailer shows that her journey to the titular region begins in a quest to find a solution to the Red Blight, an ecological disaster causing widespread famine. She will be joined by allies Erend, Varl, and Talanah, all returning characters from Horizon Zero Dawn. The Forbidden West was named so by the Carja, who lost entire armies and one of its Sun-Kings during an expedition into the uncharted region. It is generally regarded as a dangerous place, and Aloy and Sylens are set to become embroiled in the politics and warfare of the local tribes as they uncover more secrets of the Old Ones in Horizon Forbidden West.