Launching a new IP is always a risk, but one that paid off for Guerilla Games in 2017 when it released Horizon Zero Dawn. The game introduced players to Aloy, the Nora hunter who travels across the machine-infested world of a post-apocalyptic future in order to save the humans who still call it home. The follow-up to the critically acclaimed game, Horizon Forbidden West, was released earlier this year and gave players the chance to once again embody Aloy and save the world from destruction. Horizon Forbidden West received favorable reviews, with players praising the vastness of the open-world, updated mechanics, and new locations like a buried Las Vegas.
The Horizon games have a lot in common; from the bow-focused combat to the interesting design of its decaying landscapes, but one of the key aspects in each game is how the actions of the people that came before affect the world that Aloy inhabits. Datapoints and other clues help to fill in the motivations of these predecessors and explain how the world came to be, as well as provide emotional touchstones for the narrative as it explores human failure and, ultimately, human resilience. One of the more intriguing subplots is the fate of Las Vegas, and how the actions of a businessman helped pave the way for the GAIA function, POSEIDON, to take up residence.
The New Areas Of Horizon Forbidden West
As well as opening up the world in general and offering players a much bigger map than in the first game, Horizon Forbidden West features plenty of new locations as well. As Aloy explores the previously unseen frontier, new areas like a tropical San Francisco and a waterlogged Las Vegas are revealed. These not only help to provide players with something a little different from the first game, but they also give the developer a chance to flex its design muscles with different architectures, varied biomes, and diverse climates.
Las Vegas in particular is an impactful new location. Like all the cities of the Old Ones, the area lies in ruins, overtaken by nature and a variety of mechanical creatures that Aloy must fight her way through. However, Las Vegas isn't just a typical overgrown metropolis swallowed by both sand and time — it also has a watery subterranean area now called Dunehollow that provides some of the most interesting exploration opportunities in Horizon Forbidden West. Once Aloy drains the flooded ruins, the true beauty of the long-forgotten city is revealed, with gorgeous holographic light displays showing a glimmer of what Las Vegas once was.
POSEIDEN And The Other AIs
Following on directly from the events of Horizon Zero Dawn, the sequel sees Aloy on the hunt for a GAIA backup after the powerful AI was destroyed in the previous game. Although Aloy is able to locate a GAIA backup, all of its nine subordinate functions are missing, some in the hands of Far Zenith colonists, and some scattered around the nearby regions. After being separated from GAIA, the subroutines became AIs and searched for a new home so that they could carry out their designated operations. Once housed in a new area, the AIs were stuck there, all except for HEPHAESTUS, who was able to evolve and move about at will.
Like their mythological namesakes, each subroutine-turned-AI had a specific aspect of life that they oversaw — HEPHAESTUS to create the machines, DEMETER to reintroduce plant life, POSEIDON to detoxify the water, etc. The retrieval of the various subroutines dominates the main storyline of Horizon Forbidden West, and represents an important step in Aloy's goal to save the world. Once they are reintegrated with GAIA, the advanced AI will be able to handle the threats that Aloy and her people face as the world continues to deteriorate around them.
The Impact Of Stanley Chen
Although the Old Ones are long gone, remnants of them still exist throughout the world, and help to build a picture of what life used to be like before the devastation of the Faro Plague. Datapoints and audio logs are key ways for Aloy (and by extension, the player) to learn more about the ones that came before. Sometimes these Datapoints can provide heartbreaking glimpses into their final days, like the Datapoints found in the secret vault beneath the Base that Aloy can unlock towards the end of the game.
The Datapoints dotted around the ruins of Las Vegas, or Dunehollow as it's now called, give an intriguing look at the plight of the City of Second Chances, and in particular the actions of one Stanley Chen. In 2035, the entrepreneur and inventor failed to impress investors and his water-filtration start-up couldn't get off the ground. On the point of losing everything, Chen bet everything he had on roulette and won millions as a result, helping him to finally launch his business. By this point, Las Vegas was on its last legs, as the climate made the desert increasingly uninhabitable, and the start of the Faro Plague forced humans to fight against machines.
With temperatures at unendurable highs and tourists nowhere to be seen, Las Vegas was at breaking point. Potable water was a rarity, but thanks to Stanley Chen's filtration systems and commitment to rebuilding the city, the residents of Las Vegas were able to access drinking water, building an unlikely haven amidst the savage deserts. But this couldn't last forever, and players can follow Chen's heartbreaking journey through Las Vegas via a trail of Datapoints as he shuts down the city once the water runs out.
When it came down to it, Chen couldn't shut down the city's systems for good and instead left them on standby, in case future generations stumbled upon the ruins of Las Vegas and were able to resurrect the city. This last-ditch attempt to save the city he loved so much helped to open the door centuries later for POSEIDON, as it finds a home for its own water purification attempts (even if this does go awfully awry before Aloy comes to the rescue).
The legacy of Chen — bringing water to the desert city — comes full circle when the AI takes up residence, and the flooding of the once drought-ridden region also represents an awful kind of poetry, before it is eventually drained and begins its road to recovery.
Horizon Forbidden West is available now on PS4 and PS5.
