Horizon Forbidden Westpicks up right where the first game leaves off, having just defeated Hades and stopped the immediate threat of global destruction. Disaster hasn’t fully been averted, however. In this game, Aloy journeys to find a cure for the dying world, and the best answer isreviving Gaia, the mother program that oversaw Zero Dawn.
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While Aloy’s initial goal is to revive Gaia to cure themysterious blightafflicting the lands, this story quickly deepens with new andcomplicated tribal politicsalongside a new enemy from the Old World returning.
This post contains SPOILERS for Horizon Forbidden West
Who Are The Far Zeniths?
One of the bigger surprises is the arrival of thefuturistic Far Zeniths.In the beginning of the game, Aloy is going through the headquarters of the Far Zenith project as they tried tosteal of copy of Gaia. While exploring, Aloy learns this project was another answer to the growing robot threat on Earth. Those selected for the project would board a spacecraft and travel many of light years away to another habitable world in the Sirius system.
Aloy discovers that theFar Zenith shuttle blew upon the runway before it could launch – or at least that was the story. As she learns later on, theshuttle did launchand did reach a planet. After living there for many centuries, the Far Zeniths returned to Earth, having not only Old World technology but also a millennium of improvements.
Their technology advanced to a point that made peoplephysically immortal, essentially prevent their bodies from aging. This allowed them to live for the thousand or so years since leaving Earth. The people you meet in the game are the same ones who boarded the shuttle and left Earth all those years ago.
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The New Threat
After finally defeating the Far Zeniths, Aloy learns their exact reason for returning to Earth. While on Far Zenith, they continued to greatly advance technology. Seeing the dire results of technological advancement on Earth (the Faro Plague) didn’t seem to stop them as they attempted to create a new and more evolved AI.
This AI is now known as Nemesisand is a collection of digital copies of all the Far Zeniths' minds. This AI is now hyper-intelligent and attempted to kill the people on the planet in the Sirius system. Fearing the new AI, the Far Zeniths returned to Earth to collect the various Zero Dawn AI to take to a new planet and hide from Nemesis.Nemesisis also revealed to be the one whosent the extinction signal to HADESand cause the events of the first game.
Now, knowing about the approaching threat, Aloy is left in the Far Zeniths base along with her friends – and Sylens, who decides to stay behind and help fight the coming threat. Having taken out the Far Zeniths,Aloy and her comradesnow have access to some of the Far Zenith technology, but this is the same technology that wasn’t enough to stop Nemesis. An exact timeline isn’t given for how far awayNemesisis, but it was following the Far Zeniths and isheaded directly for Earth. The game ends with aclear threaton its way to Earth to wipe out any and all living beings.
