History HorizonZeroDawn / TropesAToM

** All machines start out with only partial armor plating, but if you kill too many of any given type, the Cauldrons roll out upgraded versions that have the same stats but significantly improved armor coverage, making even [[TheGoomba Goombas]] like the Watcher a challenge to OneHitKill at range. Note that your kill statistics carry over into NewGamePlus, so you're likely to encounter the up-armored variants immediately.

* HopeSpot:
** Aloy and Erend discover that [[spoiler:Ersa is not dead and is in fact captured by Dervahl. But they arrive too late to save her and she dies in Erend's arms]].
** [[spoiler:The people of 2066 believed Zero Dawn to be a {{superweapon}} designed to stop the Faro Plague and willingly went all-in for Operation Enduring Victory to buy time. They were deliberately lied to by the creators and backers of Zero Dawn, who knew humanity was already doomed yet completed Zero Dawn with what turned out to be just enough time:]]
--->'''General Herres''': Then Enduring Victory served its purpose, after all.\\
'''Elisabet Sobeck''': Yes. If we'd had even one day less...

** Second, [[BeliefMakesYouStupid Belief Makes You]] LawfulStupid. Practically every race that has religious beliefs (Carja, Nora, Banuk, etc) has several characters who are stuck-up and obstructive, and an uncountable number of stories have characters put in physical and emotional distress because of rigid adherence to these beliefs or their tribe's cultural laws. Conversely, the most happiness occurs when characters others bend, ignore or tear down these rules out of fairness and compassion. Perhaps the biggest example of this in action is Lanzra, who is so consumed by her religious beliefs that she's barely her own person, decrying Aloy as a curse ([[spoiler:and later on, a blessing]]) without any self-awareness or actual judgement of her own. For her part Aloy has no issue with the beliefs of the various tribes she encounters, but is ''extremely'' critical whenever they're unfair, vague and/or don't make any sense, such as the idea that there can never be a Carja Sun-Queen, or the "one size fits all" punishments that the Nora and Banuk employ.
** The Oseram and Banuk downplay this, though it is still present. While the game doesn't show an Oseram religion, they're implied to have a strong cultural orthodoxy that presses out some of their more creative minds like Petra Forgewoman, arguing over minutia instead of pressing on. The Banuk, by contrast, have several cultural norms that risk trouble in unexpected situations, such as hunters not being allowed to harvest machine parts or the only way to achieve leadership being challenges rather than competency. While neither seems to greatly hamper either tribe, it still does show that it is still present in these societies as well.

** Overall progress is tracked in the Progression page. To hit 100% you'll need to complete all 57 quests, scan 26 machines, gather 60 collectibles, buy 17 shadow items, earn 15 blazing suns in the hunting grounds, scale 5 Tallnecks, override 4 Cauldrons, and clear out 5 bandit camps plus 11 corrupted zones. Notably you don't have to collect any Datapoints.

* FantasyKitchenSink: The game is essentially every PulpMagazine trope amalgamated into one setting for your convenience. There are ruins of a mysterious civilization beneath the earth. There are brawny tundra barbarians with brutal rites of passage. There are indolent nobles jockeying for power. There are vast deserts filled with cows and lonely towering mesas. There are steamy jungles filled with mad cultists. There are bands of mercenaries. There are exotic femme fatales spying for king and country. There are blood sacrifices. There are Epic Heroes inexplicably better than normal men at everything. There are elaborate clifftop cities. There are shirtless men and [[NubileSavage oddly-scantily-clad women]]. There are intrepid archaeologists and big game hunters. There are savage pirates on tropical paradise islands. There is at least ''one'' child [[{{Wuxia}} who trained on a mountain for years to fulfil their mystically-charged destiny]]. And that’s not even mentioning any of the pulp sci fi elements blended in for good measure: killer robots [[spoiler:that TurnedAgainstTheirMasters]], the long looming shadow of {{Precursors}}, glowing holographic InstantRunes... And the franchise is only broadening as time goes on.

** For those used to "The Base Team" from Forbidden West, it can be strange to see Varl be absent from 95%% of ''Zero Dawn's'' story.

** A scanned glyph penned by a healer in the Blazon Arch describes the differing, outlandish locations that aren't even featured in the game called "The Forbidden West", transcribed from his wards whose injuries were caused by their expeditions who only brought back a few souvenirs, including a seashell, black sand, and some glass. [[VideoGame/HorizonForbiddenWest The sequel]] is all about exploring these lands (stretching from Utah across to Las Vegas and San Francisco) and ultimately deconstructs the datapoint as Carja sensationalism, not dissimilar to DarkestAfrica tropes. Among its descriptions are [[UsefulNotes/{{Utah}} the Salt Bite lake]], the Desert Clan's territory, Las Vegas buried in the Stillsands, the Pacific Ocean, and machines not seen in the Sundom. While the descriptions are... ''broadly'' accurate, anyone who's played the sequel will tell you that the Forbidden West isn't any more or less extraordinary than the Sundom and Sacred lands in ''Zero Dawn''. One has to think what the guards of Barren Light think of this!

* EldritchLocation: A scanned glyph found in one of the Carja towns describes the differing, outlandish locations that aren't even featured in the game called "The Forbidden West". The one who penned the entry seemed to be a healer, who recalls his wards' tales about the "Western lands" and their travels--which incidentally seem to be the cause of their injuries, illnesses, and ultimately, dying or maddened states. The healer continues his recall of the ruined cities his wards mention, as well as even wilder, stranger, and more dangerous machines and the strange tribes of people that roam the land far to the West of the Nora, Carja, Oseram, and Banuk lands. (Though keep in mind, these people are frightened by a description of what's obviously the ocean, and the Carja writers especially have a habit of sensationalising.) Near the end of the entry, the healer recalls how his wards came back with next to nothing, except for small souvenirs from these Western lands, including that of a seashell. Geographically, if the game's map covers Colorado and Utah up to Yosemite, then "The Forbidden West" is presumably the West Coast; California to maybe Oregon. The trailer for the sequel shows a glimpse of at least San Francisco and the Bay Area, and the former is now mostly underwater.

** The Closed Circle also means that Aloy is completely in the dark about any world events. Since she grew up within the Embrace, the heart of Nora lands, she is completely unaware of major events and cultures, most notably the Carja's Red Raids. At least one character is stunned that Aloy has no idea what that is and has to be told abouy it, allowing her to be a FishOutOfWater character.

** The DLC has its own separate Progression page. To hit 100% there are a further 16 quests, 15 collectibles, 10 shadow items, 11 unique mods, 5 new machines, and 3 open-world activities. There's also 100 pieces of Bluegleam to collect, which acts as currency needed to buy most of the shadow items.

** If you're missing items you need to trade for weapons or armor from a merchant, you can assign them to your quest log as errands to help you remember what items you need.

** If you only have the base game and reach the level cap, the game keeps quietly adding up XP so if you decide to get ''Frozen Wilds'', you'll start out with the skill points you would have earned for the extra skills.

** [[spoiler:Just as bad as HADES, HAPHAESTUS was designed to create the various robotic lifeforms that inhabit the planet. The design behind it was that it could create a variety of robots that [[MechanicalAnimals mimicked animals]] and helped replensih resources by gathering materials and using them for various repairs. Humans hunted them for parts, and Gaia didn't mind as that was part of their purpose. When HAPHAESTUS broke loose thanks to the same signal that freed HADES, it [[GrewBeyondTheirProgramming immediately began producing aggressive attack robots]] to defend its creations. It didn't understand that humans use the parts for their civilizations. Now that it relied on its own programming; it basically assumed "Humans attacking = Bad = Better machines = Humans attack = Even better machines" and so on. HAPHAESTUS goal, at this point, is to create an unstoppable force of robots by assimilating other systems, and then simply continuing to produce them for no reason (as it doesn't have a goal beyond creating the machines). It is the entire focus of the Frozen Wilds DLC.]]

*** Carja Blazon gear protects against varying degrees of fire. This being the armor that [[BareYourMidriff shows the most skin]] actually makes some sense from this perspective, as a) it has less fabric that can catch fire, and b) its name implies an association with the Blazon Arch, a town in the middle of a ThirstyDesert.

* AugmentedReality: As a kid, Aloy finds a [[http://horizonzerodawn.wikia.com/wiki/Focus "Focus"]], which lets her scan stuff and read documents from the Old World. The lights (and text) she sees are invisible to everyone else.

* BrickJoke: The first audio log Aloy found is a scientist sending a happy birthday message to his son: "Happy birthday, Isaac. Daddy sure does love his little big man." Years later, [[spoiler:Sylens says those same exact words to Aloy after giving her a new copy of her Focus]].

* DespairEventHorizon: Many people who find out the true purpose of Zero Dawn can't cope with the news, which is understandable considering [[spoiler:it straight up tells them that the Faro Plague is unstoppable and all life on Earth is doomed. The ZD staff knew this beforehand and had an extensive counseling staff on hand, and even offered medically assisted suicide as an available option]].

* ClosedCircle: A rather tragic case for Aloy occurs in the beginning of the story. The Nora's Scared Lands are ''extremely'' isolationist and leaving is forbidden, even to Outcasts, whom are expected to spend their sentence living in the Embrace in complete isolation from their fellow members until they are allowed back into Mother's Heart. In Aloy's case, being outcast for life from birth effectively means she is both isolated from the small community within the valley and forbidden from leaving it to seek companionship elsewhere, even when she grows into a capable adventurer who can traverse the dangerous wilds. The number of people Aloy has interacted with growing up inside the Embrace can be counted on a single hand, furthering her sense of loneliness. Said isolationist views are so ingrained, that it takes exceptional circumstances, such at the attack on the proving and the slaughter of the Nora war parties who tried to retaliate, to allow the high matriarchs to anoint Aloy as a 'Seeker', who is allowed to journey outside the lands with the All Mother's protection. [[spoiler:Rost was only able to similarly journey outside the Sacred Lands by being anointed as a DeathSeeker, one who is already considered dead, in order to avenge the murder of his family by outsiders]].

** Different tribes' outfits' being [[IncrediblyLamePun tailored]] for their environments means Aloy gets differing benefits from wearing each:

* CutsceneIncompetence: Inside the Zero Dawn facility, [[spoiler:Aloy suddenly forgets how to duck when Helis throws a grenade at her, resulting in her being knocked out and captured. In the arena sequence that follows, pitting her against two Corruptors is treated as insurmountable odds. Whether it actually would be depends on what level the player is at the time.]]

** [[spoiler:The original Faro robots were designed to be completely autonomous, which became a problem when a glitch caused them to stop taking orders from their creators, or anyone, and they just started attacking and consuming everything in their path]].

** The Strike From Above and Strike From Below skills -- it's cool to be able to GoombaStomp a human or Watcher, but the moves are ''heavily'' situational and most of the time it's easier just to snipe the target from a distance. The main reason to take them is that they lead to the extremely useful Leader Strike skill, which gives you the ability to make stealth kills on even the toughest humans.
** ''The Frozen Wilds'' added the Dismount Strike skill to this list, mainly because it only works on small machines and humans, forces you off your mount while you could just as well hit the target from horseback, and naturally aggros everything in the area if you ride straight into a group of enemies.
** The Double Arrow and Triple Arrow skills. They can give you a strong alpha strike from cover, but they really hurt your precise aim and it's too slow to load multiple arrows once you're in combat. In the end, their best use is to boost status effect application with either freeze, burn, shock, or corruption arrows -- a few uses of a triple arrow shot nearly guarantees the appropriate effect -- and for smaller machines, like Glinthawks, immediate results with only one use (provided all three arrows land).
** Extra arrows are zig-zagged with the bows in ''The Frozen Wilds''. Because of the added draw time, it becomes worthwhile again to nock multiple arrows then loose them all at once for extremely high damage.