Horizon Zero Dawn (2020), developed by Guerrilla and published by PlayStation PC LLC
The world has changed. Once global civilisations were torn to shreds, people returned to more tribal roots. The wilds are populated by animal-like robots that the humans hunt for components to utilise in their weapons and armour. But almost all of the marvellous technology known by the ancients has been lost in time. They know very little of the people who came before them, as there are no records, only ruins and dust they left behind after some cataclysmic event that burned their world.
You play as Alloy, a young hunter who has been ostracised from her Nora tribe since her birth. Rost, a grizzled old outcast, has been taking care of her and teaching her for the day that is now in front of her: a contest, a proving, which might give her back her privilege to be among Nora once more. But the day of proving goes terribly wrong when the Noras are attacked. Having completed the challenge, Alloy is made a warrior of Nora and a Seeker, who is sent beyond the Nora lands to find out where the warriors and their corrupted machines came from.
Alloy is not a complete stranger to the technology of the ancients. For years, she has used a Focus, a device she found in the ruins. It allows her to see things others miss as well as track people, animals and robots alike. It allows her to see the weak points of the robots and access information of various datapoints left behind by the long since dead people.
Through her Focus, Alloy is contacted by a man called Seylens. He tells her they have the same goal: to find and bring down the people known as Eclipse, who are behind the attacks. They have managed to wake up an ancient AI entity called Hades, which is capable of corrupting the robots.
On her journeys, Alloy finds out the reason for the disappearance of the ancients. A virus among their robots caused them to self-replicate uncontrollably by using biomass. As their final gambit, they created a massive AI system called Zero Dawn, which would reboot life on Earth. They themselves, including every human in the world, would be dead, but in the meantime, Zero Dawn, led by AI Gaia, would rebuild the ecosystem after getting the rabid robots in check. After several centuries, the Earth was reborn, but not all went as intended. For example, the AI system meant to educate new humans about their past was never used as one of the researchers came to the conclusion it would be for the best if the future humans had a clean break from them.
The big kicker is that Alloy is actually a genetic clone of Elizabeth Solbek, the creator of Zero Dawn. She was created by Gaia in her final effort to find a way to shut down Hades, as the systems need her direct genetic link to work. This heritage also allows Alloy to enter old compounds out of access to everyone else.
Hades itself is a part of Zero Dawn. It was meant to be a failsafe system that would reset the life-generating process if it was deemed to go in the wrong direction. As the scientist couldn't be sure Gaia would succeed in its first attempt, it was seen as pivotal to allow it begin anew from a blank slate after a failure, as many times it would be necessary. But now, there's no one to tell Hades to stop, so it's up to Alloy before the world as she knows it comes to its end.
Horizon Zero Dawn is an open-world action-adventure. It's not doing anything particularly new or novel within the genre. From the get-go, you get map markers, points of interest and missions from the people. Then you run around, solve things, kill things, manufacture things like ammo or health items and so on. During the game, you get experience points to beef up Alloy's skills, and after successfully completing the game, you'll get the opportunity to start a new game Plus with all her nice skills in place.
What makes Horizon stand out is the world it has. The faraway future of tribal humans living in a world inhabited by robot animals. The ruins of the old world reveal the ages' buried secrets piece by piece. It's a technically very well-made game that offers a very detailed and well-executed world to explore for a duration of 50+ or so hours, depending on whether you feel like finding every secret it has to offer.
If you like the genre, Horizon Zero Dawn is among the better ones it has to offer. It's available for PC and PlayStation. For the PC, you can get it from GOG or Steam. There's also a remastered version of it, but it doesn't change much beyond improving graphical fidelity by using techniques from the sequel, Forbidden West. So, if you want the remastered, you need to go to Steam or buy it on consoles. If you are fine with the original, which is still a great-looking game, you can get it from GOG.
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