Horizon: Zero Dawn Review

The once-PS4 exclusive Horizon: Zero Dawn is coming to PC this summer. So, now is the perfect time to take a look back at this best-selling 2017 game.

Story

In the not so near future, humanity returns to its roots. They live off the land, hunting and gathering in close clans that stay huddled together for survival against the wild beasts of the land. Only the wild beasts of this particular land aren’t living, breathing things. They’re machines.

You play as Aloy, a girl raised outside of your area’s primary clan. Aloy has been an exile since birth for unknown reasons. She’s learned to survive on her own with the help of her paternal figure Rost. As a young child, she stumbles into a ruin and discovers a Focus, an augmented reality device that gives her a survival edge.

When she comes of age, she’s eligible to enter the Proving. This is a competition that allows any child to win the right to join the local clan as a Brave. It removes her status as an outsider and gives her access to people and resources otherwise forbidden to her.

It’s during this competition that the local clan, the Nora, are attacked. This is where the game truly begins. As one of the few surviving Nora Braves, you are sent out into the world to discover who these attackers are, what they want, and to learn more about how the hybrid world you live in really came to be.