Hunting Machines and Capturing Beauty in Horizon Zero Dawn

I've been playing a lot of Horizon Zero Dawn lately. Since the game was released for PC during the pandemic in 2020, I wanted to try it, but I couldn't because I didn't have a powerful enough system to play such a game. It's one of those games that deserves to be played on a big monitor with high resolution, even though it looks gorgeous on low to mid-range graphics settings as well.

I'm really enjoying the campaign and the open world. You might know that it's set in a post-apocalyptic world where an ancient, advanced civilisation is in ruins, and people now live in primitive tribes. But the world is filled with machines, which seem to be modelled after large animals. And hunting these machines is so much fun.

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The game is filled with these dangerous machines and tribes in conflict. These are spread across a beautiful, open world with multiple biomes.

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The ruins of the old civilisation are everywhere. There are massive caves that seem to be some kind of laboratories for the lost civilisation.

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Those machines must be their creation, or perhaps they played a role in the destruction of that society? I have to proceed further in the story to know what is going on exactly. But the encounters with some machines are so engaging that I just forget to focus on the main story.

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There are occasional human enemies, but those are very pale in comparison to the combat with the war machines. They need to be studied for their weak points, or which element they are weak against and then dealt with accordingly.

There are corrupted machines that are weak against fire. Can you guess which animal the next machine is based on? (The ground one?)

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The main protagonist, Aloy, is a charming character. You see her in the story since she was a baby, and the story does a good job of building her character at the start.

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Some of these machines are tough to handle, especially when you don't have the right gear.

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The day-night cycle is quick, which works for a game this beautiful. Never have I thought that at night it is getting too dark or there are some aspects which is only good during the day. It is balanced well, and both the day and night scenes look gorgeous too.

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The above two shots are from roughly the same area, not too far from each other, and you can see how they can look different in daylight, which makes the map fresh.

I have been playing with the Photo Mode a lot. Whenever I see a beautiful composition on the screen, I stop to take a shot of it. But not before tinkering with every possible value, even if I press the reset key and take that original shot xD.

I love this shot of the forest. I played with the photo mode a bit to get the right mood in the shot.

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Do you see the chaos in this next one? I am fighting against a massive thing which I call a flame thrower. It has a tank of fuel which it uses to burn us. You can use it to your advantage if you can blast the tank. But it is easier said than done.

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If you notice, I am riding a machine too. Some can be overridden and hacked. Not all hacked machines can be mounted, but some can, and they are useful in combat and transportation.

In the next shot, I hacked both of these machines; that's why they are not angry at each other, or they would not be calm like that.

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Such a nice game with beautiful graphics and fun gameplay.

Let me know if you like those shots and which one is your favourite among them. Mine would be that forest shot.