The Vantage Point Story
The world of Horizon Zero Dawn is teeming with stories and lore for you to discover. Of course, with so many datapoints and collectibles to grab along the way, there’s a good chance that you may have missed one or two. Or perhaps you just didn’t check them out when you found them. As such, we’ve put together this list of the coolest stories hidden away in some of the collectibles and datapoints in Horizon Zero Dawn.
Please be warned, this post will contain some spoilers regarding the game’s story. If you want to enjoy Horizon Zero Dawn spoiler-free, we advise turning back now.
While Vantage Points may just seem like some brief visual glimpses into the past, they actually tell a pretty interesting tale. These collectibles essentially tell the story of a guy on an apocalypse tour, lovingly referred to as the ‘Apocashitstorm Tour.’
The author tells you of why he visited these particular places once everything had all started going horribly wrong. Significant moments in his life took place in these locations, and listening to the audio only scratches the surface of the details. Jumping into the collectibles menu and selecting each Vantage Point will give you a good few paragraphs, telling you a story of what happened to this guy in all of these places before the events happened.
They may not flesh out the main story or characters significantly, but reading through them definitely makes for an interesting adventure. Be sure to collect them all to get the full story.
Wife
Wife is a pretty insightful datapoint if you can find it in Horizon Zero Dawn. It’s an audio datapoint from Helis, giving you an insight into the dark mind of one of the key antagonists in Horizon Zero Dawn.
In the datapoint, Helis tells the story of his wedding night and how, after his wife fell asleep, he lay watching her for hours, hypnotized by her beauty. Although enamored with his wife, he is frustrated by the vulnerability and fragility of life. He pushed away the luxuries and comforts filling the room and instead, slept naked on the stone floor.
When he awakes in the morning, Helis finds his wife, also naked, lying next to him on the floor. The datapoint ends with “You said nothing. You did not have to. Already you had shown me, beyond doubt, that we were meant to be.” It’s a touching datapoint that shows just how deep the hate and evil in Helis really goes, but it’s also kinda cute that a murderous psychopath who hates everything can find love, too.
Artemis Status
Be warned, because this one is gonna be spoiler-heavy. Artemis Status is an email from Charles Ronson to Elisabet Sobeck regarding, as you may have guessed, the status of the Artemis system.
If you missed this in the story, the Artemis system was essentially the way that the Old Ones managed to store fourteen thousand species’ samples that went extinct between the years 2000 and 2043.
Artemis Status also goes on to explain why you only seem to find a select few animals roaming around the world, and not elephants, giraffes or even dogs. This section reads as follows.
“We’ve started mapping out primary succession, selecting the pioneer organisms for a balanced and sustainable biosphere – microorganisms and insects, rabbits and hawks, foxes and wolves. Thousands more that will have to wait their turn until our new generation can be entrusted with the duty of restoring them.”
It may only be a tiny detail you notice as you explore the world, but it at least explains why some creatures can be seen happily roaming the world alongside the machines, and others still nowhere to be seen. Perhaps more species will be restored in the likely sequel.
FAS Holograms
During the latter stages of Horizon Zero Dawn, Aloy will be exploring a bunker related to Faro Automated Solutions. In here are three hologram datapoints detailing three different kinds of “peacekeeping robots.” More interestingly however is the way that these technologies are incorporated into the world and machines around you.
The HORUS, a machine capable of “fabricating additional units to fill the ranks” sounds oddly similar to the technology inside those machine-building Cauldrons, doesn’t it? Sobeck and Faro used this military “peacekeeping” technology as part of the GAIA terraforming system.
The comparisons carry over to the KHOPESH – a “one-size-fits-all solution to main battle force capability” – whose tracking, target processing, and neural network features resemble key functions of the also Faro manufactured Focus.
Most importantly to Horizon Zero Dawn’s story, however, is the SCARAB hologram, which clearly depicts Corruptor-like machines with the “ability to slave enemy robots to its own network.” Thus, explaining where the Eclipse found the Corruptors in the first place. If only FAS had just stuck with the Focus.
Banuk Figures
The Banuk Figures in Horizon Zero Dawn may just initially seem like an incredibly fun collectible to pursue thanks to their climbing challenges, but they actually have a pretty emotional story behind them.
Banuk Figures were crafted by a member of the Banuk tribe named Tektuk. Why he made them nobody was really sure, but by reading the parchment that accommodates each one, their dark origins are revealed.
Essentially, Tiktuk poetically describes the events that led to him being out in the wilderness, making these shrines. In prose, Tiktuk tells of a night he spent with a woman, Ili who became pregnant with his son. She regretted it deeply, and eventually went off with someone else named Signak, the chieftain of this tribe. When the baby was born, Tiktuk claimed to be the baby’s father, but Signak wouldn’t believe it.
That night, Signak confronts Ili about who the father was, and it is suggested that Ili has to defend herself when outing the truth and kills him. Unfortunately, this is then pinned on Tiktuk who is falsely accused, exiled, stripped of all of his clothes and belongings, and left in the cold. Though he’ll never see his child, Tiktuk paints these elaborate markings on the wall, builds these figures, and writes these glyphs as an offering. Each glyph ends with “I paint this mark, and leave you this offering, though it will never touch the warmth of your hands.”
Talk about some hidden emotional storytelling.
Published: Mar 3, 2017 11:06 am