History HorizonZeroDawn / TropesNToZ

** The game has numerous influences from the works of Creator/HayaoMiyazaki. For instance, TheCorruption takes the form of red and black worm-like things not unlike that of the Boar Gods in ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'' and the way the machines have blue "eyes" that turn red in combat resembles the Ohmu in ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind''. Not to mention that the setting and even (to a lesser extent) plot is also highly reminiscent of ''Nausicaa'', especially the manga version.

** The game has numerous influences from the works of ''Creator/HayaoMiyazaki''. For instance, TheCorruption takes the form of red and black worm-like things not unlike that of the Boar Gods in ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'' and the way the machines have blue "eyes" that turn red in combat resembles the Ohmu in ''Anime/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind''.

** Three of the ancient items one can find (The Stranded Figure, The Stranded Shackles, and The Stranded Necklace) are from an upcoming Kojima Productions game called ''VideoGame/DeathStranding'', which happens to be using an engine created by Guerilla Games. Collect all 3, and you can trade them in to a particular merchant for a lot of boxes and a pair of warm socks. The items in the trade menu even bear the Kojima Productions logo. [[https://youtu.be/4qZT7NC-1C8?t=4m43s Proof.]]

* TakeThat: To flat-eathers. In one scene, Sylens starts to explain to Aloy that the Earth is round, not flat like she thought. Her response is to casually dismiss the idea that she ever thought the Earth was flat, pointing out that she's seen how shadows on the moon are curved during an eclipse. Since Aloy is from a tribe with basically modern scientific knowledge and was raised as an outcast even to them, this can be taken as pointing out that even someone with the most basic of observational skills should be able to figure out that the Earth is round.

* NonDamagingStatusInflictionAttack: Ice ammo doesn't damage targets, unless the bow or sling shooting it is specially modified, but enough of it will turn an enemy slow and brittle, at which point all damage dealt to it is amplified. Players are intended to then switch out their direct-damage weapons and start wailing on the target.

** The Tearblaster. It's a [[SonicStunner sonic shotgun]]; think of it as a five-round Fus Ro Dah that will blow the armor and components off a machine at close and even medium range, possibly stunning the machine as well. Not only is it more effective and more precise with close-range precision shots than the tearblast arrows from a sharpshooter bow, but each set of Tearblaster rounds only costs one Metal Vessel and one Echo Shell!

* SimpleYetAwesome: The Tearblaster has only one firing mode and can't be upgraded at all, but a single hit is all it takes to tear off most machines' armor plating and external components. Its ammo is cheap to craft, and its spread and respectable range mean that a quick salvo at the start of a battle makes the rest of it much more manageable regardless of difficulty.

* PrecursorKillers: The "Old Ones" (pre-apocalyptic humanity) were wiped out by the Faro Plague -- an army of self-replicating, biomass-feeding war-machines that went out of control. Unable to kill them off, Project Zero Dawn was created to shut down the Faro Plague, restore the biosphere and reintroduce humanity. HADES' EvilPlan is the use the same antennae MINERVA used to shut the Faro Plague off to bring them back so that they could wipe out the planet all over again.

** The event that triggered the entire plot in the game's present time: [[spoiler: an unknown signal attacks GAIA, causing her subroutines to go rogue and at least some of them to become hostile. For all the efforts of the Zero Dawn team, none of them could have anticipated this. The Sequel reveals just ''how far'' outside of context for the team the event was, such that there was no way they could have prepared for it]].

* PantheraAwesome: Actual big cats don't appear in the game despite the fact that cougars live in Colorado but the [[https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Sawtooth Sawtooth]] machines are based on the Smilodon fatalis. [[spoiler: All the cougars got eaten by the Faro Plague anyway and GAIA hasn't gotten round to replacing them yet.]]

* PyrrhicVictory: Helis has set himself up in a no-win scenario. [[spoiler: Either his attack on Meridian and the Spire fails and he dies along with most of his followers or it succeeds and HADES' plan (of which Helis is admittedly unaware) goes into action and ''all life ends,'' Helis and the Shadow Carja included.]]

* ThrownFromTheZeppelin: Downplayed non-villainous example: the titular project was an attempt to [[spoiler: [[FlingALightIntoTheFuture fling a light into the future]] against an undefeatable self-replicating RobotArmy by resurrecting life years after the planet was destroyed. In order to buy as much time as possible for the project to reach fruition, the already doomed public was given false rumors that the project was a superweapon that could wipe out the robots if completed in time, to rally as many people as possible to fight a losing battle. Those told about the real purpose of Zero Dawn, and not interested in joining, were given the choice between prison until its completion, or [[MercyKill suicide]], to prevent the truth from getting out. [[TheProtagonist Aloy]] sees recordings that indicate the project was completed without a day to spare.]]

** "Deep Secrets of the Earth": [[spoiler: Operation Enduring Victory was never meant to stop the Faro Plague, that was unhackable due to the military's specifications. Its ''real'' purpose is to delay the Swarm from Project Zero Dawn, the day life went extinct on Earth. That's right: Life went extinct on Earth (even bacteria) ''decades'' before the Faro Plague was deactivated by MINERVA. Everyone (and everything) you see in the game was a result of painstaking efforts to rebuild the biosphere from scratch by the hands of GAIA so that life can have a second chance. Humanity was reborn in the ELEUTHIA cradles (of which the All-Mother Mountain) in the Nora heartland is a part, and the place where Aloy was born. HADES? The extinction protocol that was created in the case GAIA failed to create a sustainable biosphere, in which event HADES has to reset the planet back to its original state, being somehow corrupted before the events of the game. The Derangement? HEPHAESTUS began to create more dangerous machines for some reason, which became more aggressive towards humans in the years. Oh, and Helis captures Aloy and destroys her Focus so that she can be executed in the Sun Ring.]]

** The Tearblaster. It's a sonic shotgun; think of it as a five-round [[MakeMeWannaShout Fus Ro Dah]] that will blow the armor and components off a machine at close and even medium range, possibly stunning the machine as well. Not only is it more effective and more precise with close-range precision shots than the tearblast arrows from a sharpshooter bow, but each set of Tearblaster rounds only costs one Metal Vessel and one Echo Shell!

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The Proctors in the Proving (with the exception of [[Main/{{Jerkass}} Resh]]) treat Aloy respectfully even though she is an outcast. One points out to her that she just needs to finish the Proving to become a Brave and he shows genuine concern when she decides to take the old path, which is so dangerous two people died the last time it was used. The last Proctor refuses to believe that she cheated.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The Proctors in the Proving treat Aloy respectfully even though she is an outcast. One points out to her that she just needs to finish the Proving to become a Brave and he shows genuine concern when she decides to take the old path, which is so dangerous two people died the last time it was used. The last Proctor refuses to believe that she cheated.

* RobotsThinkFaster: In the blink of an eye, [[spoiler:GAIA got disrupted by the Mysterious Signal, HADES started revolting, GAIA formulated her response plan to "reinstantiate" her creator, Elisabet Sobek (who became Aloy), write a message to Aloy in the Cradle facility she was conceived and born in, and got her plan nearly thwarted by HADES corrupting the Codex that locked the Cradle's front door.]]

** "Deep Secrets of the Earth": [[spoiler: Operation Enduring Victory was never meant to stop the Faro Plague, that was unhackable due to the military's specifications. Its ''real'' purpose is to delay the Swarm from Project Zero Dawn, the day life went extinct on Earth. That's right: Life went extinct on Earth (even bacteria) ''decades'' before the Faro Plague was deactivated by MINERVA. Everyone (and everything) you see in the game was a result of painstaking efforts to rebuild the biosphere from scratch by the hands of GAIA so that life can have a second chance. Humanity was reborn in the ELEUTHIA cradles (of which the All-Mother Mountain) in the Nora heartland is a part, and the place where Aloy was born. HADES? The extinction protocol that was created in the case GAIA failed to create a sustainable biosphere, in which event HADES has to reset the planet back to its original state, being somehow corrupted before the events of the game. The Derangement? HEPHEASTUS began to create more dangerous machines for some reason, which became more aggressive towards humans in the years. Oh, and Helis captures Aloy and destroys her Focus so that she can be executed in the Sun Ring.]]

** The event that triggered the entire plot in the game's present time: [[spoiler: an unknown signal attacks GAIA, causing her subroutines to go rogue and at least some of them to become hostile. For all the efforts of the Zero Dawn team, none of them could have anticipated this.]]

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: [[spoiler:The entire plot of the game is based on this: HADES sees Aloy, mistakenly believes her to be Elisabet Sobeck, and orders the Eclipse to kill her so that she can't interfere with its goal. This directly leads to Aloy being chosen to investigate why Eclipse attacked, learning the truth about Zero Dawn and HADES, and realizing she has to discover a way of stopping it. If HADES had never seen Aloy through Olin's Focus, or not panicked when it did, the plan would have gone off without a hitch and no one would have been in any position to stop it. On the other hand, HADES was ''never'' intended to be more than a NecessaryEvil subsystem of GAIA to terminate life where necessary in order to start over again with a working biosystem, and any critical thinking skills it developed were due to the virus infecting it and Sylens teaching it how to manipulate the superstitious Eclipse Carta to serve as hard labour and viable muscle where necessary. HADES literally ''can't'' think of a way to resolve the problem that doesn't involved [[MurderIsTheBestSolution killing it]] -- and in that regard, it at least is willing to use [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill extreme firepower to do so]].

* NiceJobFixingItVillain: [[spoiler:The entire plot of the game is based on this: HADES sees Aloy, mistakenly believes her to be Elisabet Sobeck, and orders the Eclipse to kill her so that she can't interfere with its goal. This directly leads to Aloy being chosen to investigate why Eclipse attacked, learning the truth about Zero Dawn and HADES, and realizing she has to discover a way of stopping it. If HADES had never seen Aloy through Olin's Focus, or not panicked when it did, the plan would have gone off without a hitch and no one would have been in any position to stop it.]]

* NewGamePlus: Added in patch 1.30. One can replay the game with all the upgrades and skills except for the Override tree that unlocks only after the Proving very early in the game. This includes the Shield Weaver Armor, the Tearblast arrows and other devices that on a normal playthrough is acquirable late in the game. In addition one can find Adept weapons and outfits which have extra modification slots. The catch is that difficulty level is locked unlike the normal method where the difficulty can be toggled back and forth in difficult areas.

* NoArcInArchery: Arrows generally fly straight and true without the need to account for projectile drop, though this depends on how much the bow is charged when you release- a fully charged shot from the Banuk bows will travel in an almost straight line, but a rapidly fired shot will generally have a noticable drop.

* NonDamagingStatusInflictionAttack: Ice ammo doesn't damage targets, unless the bow or sling shooting it is specially modified, but enough of it will turn an enemy slow and brittle, at which point all damage dealt to it is amplified. Players are intended to then switch out their weapons and start wailing on the target.

* OutsideContextProblem: The event that triggered the entire plot in the game's present time: [[spoiler: an unknown signal attacks GAIA, causing her subroutines to go rogue and at least some of them to become hostile. For all the efforts of the Zero Dawn team, none of them could have anticipated this.]]

** During the attack on the Proving, things are obviously bad for Aloy and the other braves, but nothing they (and you) haven't encountered and dealt with up to this point. And then one of the attackers walks up with a ''minigun'' in hand.

* WhamShot: The [[TheStinger last scene of the game]] shows [[spoiler:Sylens planning to interrogate a captured HADES as they are seen approaching the wreck of a HORUS-class titan]].

* TheStinger: [[spoiler:HADES attempts to find another Metal Devil to inhabit, but gets intercepted by Sylens. Sylens then wonders who initiated the signal that awakened HADES in the first place, and says he intends to interrogate HADES to find out the answer, as he makes his way towards a Metal Devil]].

* TripTrap: Tripcaster weapons are used to deploy these. They're particularly useful against the powerful robotic Thunderjaws. You can even upgrade the tripwire so that it will explode and cause fire damage to your prey.

* UnexpectedGameplayChange: Cauldrons generally adhere to the same formula of exploring a fully automated assembly line populated with various machines, culminating in a miniboss battle against a specific machine with some backup that ends in an unimpeded exit for Aloy. This makes it quite surprising when [[spoiler:Cauldron XI]] turns out to be a heavily damaged shell of its former self that's crawling with [[spoiler:human Eclipse troops. When Aloy gets to the core, overriding it triggers a HoldTheLine sequence against an onslaught of more Eclipse baddies that devolves into a MeleeATrois when a host of angry machines joins the party. The final part then consists of fighting her way back to the surface through a gauntlet of Stalkers and a few terrified Eclipse fighters trying their best to hide from the prowling [[PantheraAwesome Stalkers]], and once Aloy makes it out of the Cauldron, another large-scale battle between Eclipse and machines raging at the front door.]]

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Besides the creation of HADES and HAPHEASTUS who have turned on humanity, the Zero Dawn team also put a restriction on GAIA forbidding her from interacting with humans until they completed their education via APOLLO. This means that when the later was destroyed, forcing the humans to stay in ELEUTHIA, GAIA couldn't simply intervene with her hologram to mitigate the damage and tell the humans what was happening and expected to the best of her abilities, instead she was forced to leave them to be raised by the inadequate Servitors in ELEUTHIA.

* ZergRush: A key reason the Faro Plague was so unstoppable was that they replicated at an ungodly rate. It didn't matter if humanity used the best armor/guns, their own squads of scarabs (corruptors), [=EMPs=], or even ''nuclear warheads''. Anything thrown at the Faro Plague would be at best one battle won in a HopelessWar.

* ReasonableAuthoriyFigure: One of the Proctors in the Proving treats Aloy respectfully even though she is an outcast, pointing out to her she just needs to finish the Proving at all to become a Brave and showing genuine concern when she decides to take the old path, which is so dangerous two people died the last time it was used.

* ReasonableAuthoriytFigure: One of the Proctors in the Proving treats Aloy respectfully even though she is an outcast, pointing out to her she just needs to finish the proving at all to become a brave and showing genuine concern when she decides to take the old path, which is so dangerous two people dies the last time it was used.