History Characters / HorizonZeroDawnMachines

* InvincibleVillain: While the Chariot robots are individually killable, with varying difficulty, the swarm as a whole has five unique functions to make it unstoppable: 1) They are capable of converting biomass into fuel, 2) They are capable of self-replicating, 3) They can hack and convert any machines to their side, 4) They use complicated encryption that makes them immune to hacking, and 5) They have no backdoor access. Once a glitch severs their chain of command, the swarm become a plague that slowly consumes all life on Earth, multiplying faster than they can be destroyed. [[spoiler:PlayedWith in that, had Ted Faro not attempted to hide his catastrophe, the swarm could have been stopped before their numbers reached a critical mass.]]

* ContrastingSequelAntagonist: The Specters heavily contrast to the Corruptors in the first game. Corruptors are made of metal, while Specters are made of nanomachines. While Corruptors are ancient machines who move in a crude gait, corrupt other machines and even exude poison, Specters are futuristic machines who move fluidly, but they lack the ability to corrupt other machines.

* InterfaceScrew: In ''Forbidden West'', they'll temporarily disable Aloy's focus when alerted to her presence.

Similar to the Scrapper in appearance and function, though slightly smaller and weaker as well as sporting a more animalistic head. It trades the scrapper's beam for a shock orb attack.

* DisasterScavengers: Like the scrapper, it exists to reclaim destroyed machines.

An upgraded version of the Watcher, it has heavier armor and replaces its glare attack with a laser.

* EyeBeams: Fires a laser out of its eye instead of the Watcher's blinding Glare attack.

* AttackAttackAttack: They're the weakest of the outright hostile machines Aloy runs into, but make up for it by being a fair bit more aggressive than most, with barely any pause between attacks as long as you're within melee distance.

A type of machine found in the Cut, it resembles a grizzly bear. Classified as a Combat-class machine in ''Frozen Wilds'', its type is changed to Aquisition in ''Forbidden West''.

* GroundPunch: Attacks the ground to cause long-range ice attacks.

** [[DownplayedTrope Ever so slightly.]] [[spoiler:The Fireclaws encountered out in the Cut after defeating HEPHAESTUS are every bit as dangerous as the one fought at the climax of the DLC story ''but'' they don't have towers popping up to heal them and are fought in much larger areas with more cover, allowing hit and run tactics not possible in the Firebreak core.]]

* MadeOfIron: This beast is ridiculously tough. Even if you shoot off all its armor (which is already tough enough), destroying its few weak points remains a considerable challenge regardless, and it will shake off any clever strategy you might think to employ against it. Worse, even the destruction of all weak points is insufficient to kill a Fireclaw, you'll have to keep shooting it for a while to bring it down.

* MetalSlime: By far the rarest GiantMook machine that the player will ever face as they're only found within a single site and nowhere else with every other encounters of them being done in side quests (they're the only large machine to not be fought in the main story). Similarly in ''Forbidden West'', they're exclusively found within 2 specific adjacent sites in the Nevada Desert with only 1 single scripted encounter against them within a single sidequest. Every other large machines (besides [[FinalBoss Specter Prime and Horus]]) have at least 2 or more mandatory fights where they must be destroyed to clear the area.

* DevouredByTheHorde: The Chariot-class robots had the ability to unleash a swarm of nano-haze to consume organic matter, as well as more directly feed on organic matter if they could get close enough. One data log has someone describe a Corruptor whipping up a school of dolphins into a slurry it them absorbed. During Operation: Enduring Victory, there are a number of casualties caused by the nano-haze, with one soldier noting that his legs were being stripped layer by layer.
* EatingMachine: All of them have the ability to consume organic matter "in emergencies". For the rogue swarm, this meant "all the time". Fortunately, when awoken in the present day, none of them have this capacity, [[spoiler:as they are being controlled remotely by HADES with a workaround. HADES can't reactivate that function without sending out an activation signal that will properly awaken them]].

* WeakToFire: Apparently, [[spoiler:being buried for a couple centuries]] made the Corruptors' armored hull vulnerable to fire damage. The reasoning behind this somewhat weird phenomenon isn't really touched upon (though it is given a HandWave as their engines easily overheating), so it tends to come across as a mercy from the devs to give this beast some weakness at least.

* DevouredByTheHorde: [[spoiler:The Chariot-class robots can use their biomass conversion by either feeding on their prey directly or sending a swarm of nano-haze to consume from a distance. During Operation: Enduring Victory, there are a number of casualties caused by the nano-haze, with one soldier noting that his legs were being stripped layer by layer.]]

* EatingMachine:
** Some of the machines, like the Grazer and Lancehorn, drive rotating horns into the ground and collect vegetation that they convert into flammable Blaze, some kind of biofuel. This is taken back to Cauldrons to fuel them, and presumably other machines as well. The rotating horns also seem to aerate the soil, and the machines seem to move on and let things regrow.
** [[spoiler:Their predecessors, the machines that made up the Faro Plague, also 'ate' but were far less discerning and restrained.]]

* HumongousMecha:
** The Thunderjaw is one of the biggest machines wandering the wilds. The Behemoth is pretty much self-explanatory. As for the air, there's the Stormbird.
** Those spindly metal things embedded in the mountain at the northeast corner of the map? [[spoiler:Yeah, that's a HORUS-class machine that dwarfs even the mountain it's stuck in.]]
* InvincibleVillain: [[spoiler:The Chariot line robots have five unique functions to make them unstoppable: 1) They are capable of converting biomass into fuel, 2) They are capable of self-replicating, 3) They can hack and convert any machines to their side, 4) They use complicated encryption that makes them immune to hacking, and 5) They have no backdoor access. Once a glitch severs their chain of command, the robots become a plague that slowly consumes all life on Earth, multiplying faster than they can be destroyed. PlayedWith in that, had Ted Faro not attempted to hide his catastrophe, the swarm could have been stopped before their numbers reached a critical mass.]]

* MechanicalAbomination: While downplayed in that they were made by humans, the ancient machines come across as this compared to the sleeker, animal-inspired and [[spoiler:HEPHAESTUS-designed]] machines that most modern humans consider "natural". Sharper edges, black-tinted plating and hellish noises make the Corruptor distinctly terrifying on its own, while the Metal Devils are gargantuan and almost squid-like, with 146 meters long weapon-equipped tentacles. [[spoiler:As is revealed in the endgame, the CHARIOT-line were designed for the sole purpose of killing, unlike HEPHAESTUS' machines, which have life-giving purposes]].

* MechanicalMonster: Some of them, like the Thunderjaw, are even tougher than the ancient war machines that destroyed the world!

* TurnedAgainstTheirMasters: [[spoiler:The Chariot line were originally created to serve Old World humanity as peacekeepers, only for a string of horrible design decisions to ultimately turn them into an omnicidal threat]].
* VillainousGlutton: [[spoiler:This is how the Chariot line destroyed all life on Earth. Once the glitch occured, the robots defaulted to their biomatter conversion function as their primary source of fuel and devoured everything until there was nothing left for them to eat.]]

* VillainOverride: They're the reason all those corrupted machines are roaming the land. By infecting them with the virus-like Corruption, previously peaceful machines turn into crazed, more powerful versions that attack anything that isn't corrupted itself on sight.

* BonusBoss: [[spoiler:HEPHAESTUS managed to complete six of them before Aloy's party exploded the Thunder's Drum Cauldron. You fight one as the final enemy of the main ''Frozen Wilds'' storyline (with healing towers and support), but after that, the other five are unleashed upon the Cut for you to hunt down and fight for some bonus rewards. You can also find extra Fireclaws in the upper-right corner of the map to harvest lenses and hearts.]] Averted in ''Forbidden West'', where they [[FromBadToWorse occur naturally in the Lowland Clan's territory]]. HEPHAESTUS has been busy.

* PutOnABus: While the Corruptors appeared in the second game (albeit only one scripted encounter), Deathbringers did not return in ''Forbidden West'' despite its guns being used by the Tenakth Rebels.

* SolidGoldPoop: Played with, as they are machines that don't actually defecate but while feeding they will regularly discharge fertilizer canisters that can be looted for valuable resources before they fade.

* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: The Apex Shellsnapper is vulnerable to Frost damage, making it one of the few machines in the game that has a detachable weapon that deals an elemental type that the same machine is weak to. It's not necessarily easy to exploit that weakness, though, given how short the Frost Blaster's range is.

* LightningGun: It has a massive Shock Cannon in its tail that lets it fire ChainLightning blasts.

* EpicFlail: The Leaplasher can use an energy tether connected to a small ball of whatever it's transporting to attack Aloy.

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The cannons on their backs can be forcibly removed and used to ''[[JustForPun ravage]]'' them in return to devastating effect. Even on the highest difficulties, getting the cannon off and having enough time to spin it up is usually a death sentence to the Ravager.