If someone warns her of a dangerous new machine she should look out for, well, she’s just more interested in learning how it works rather than taking it down. In almost every situation, when someone Aloy knows and trusts tells her to avoid a specific location for her own good, she’s more inclined to explore it than she originally was. Like any good protagonist, Aloy has her motivations and her personality quirks, but more importantly, she has her curiosity (which almost always seems to get the better of her).

Like both BioShock and Dead Space, Horizon Zero Dawn works to tell a single story amidst a universe of interesting characters by following Aloy over the course of her journey to the truth. And the best part? Well, quite simply, you get to connect the dots of humanity’s struggle to survive against increasingly aggressive machines yourself while adventuring out into the world for the first time as Aloy. Like every good downfall, the story behind Horizon’s apocalyptic world isn’t told to the player immediately - it’s littered around the entire game world, woven into dozens of quests, data logs, and holographic projections. While I’m still quite not quite done my first playthrough as Aloy, I can’t help but appreciate how much effort Guerrilla Games put into telling the story of human civilization before the machine apocalypse. It’s no secret that there are a ton of moving parts in Horizon Zero Dawn which collectively works together to weave an intricate universe into one of the best post-apocalyptic stories in video games.

Horizon zero dawn story