Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn is a 2017 action-role playing video game developed by Guerrilla Games for the Playstation 4. Set about one thousand and fifty years in the future, it follows Aloy, a skilled hunter and archer, as she explores a world overrun by mysterious mechanical creatures, investigates the unknown circumstances of her birth, and attempts to discover what happened to the "Old Ones" and why their civilization fell long ago.

Erend

• Why is it, every time something terrible happens, everyone tells you the worst thing that ever happened to them, as though that makes it easier?
• I guess growing up means putting what you should do in front of what you want to do, right?

Sylens

• I may have been foolish enough to serve HADES, but I was never so foolish that I trusted it.
• There's so much to discover before the world ends.
• Try asking something less trivial.

Dialogue

[Rost teaches Aloy one final lesson before the Proving]

• Rost: For years you’ve trained to win the Proving, but only for yourself. As a brave, it will be your duty to fight for your tribe.
• Aloy: My tribe?! You said I wouldn’t need them.
• Rost: But I never said the tribe wouldn’t need you! The strength to stand alone is the strength to make a stand. To serve a purpose greater than yourself. That is the lesson you must learn. And remember it…after the Proving, and after I am gone.

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[Aloy watches a holographic recording in the GAIA Bunker]

• Charles Ronson: That was the last transmission of Elisabet Sobeck. She gave everything for the hope of life on this planet. And we are all in her debt. [the holographic recording ends]
• Sylens: Aloy?
• Aloy: She’s gone. Really gone.
• Sylens: You knew she couldn’t have survived, Aloy. And her achievements were—beyond exceptional.
• Aloy: While her people bickered, she was the only one who took responsibility. The only one who could.
• Sylens: She was better than them.
• Aloy: That’s not what I said!
• Sylens: She was. You shouldn’t be afraid to admit it.
• Aloy: You think she was better because she was smart. Because she designed Zero Dawn. But you miss the point. What made her great was that she was willing to sacrifice herself. For others. For everyone who would come later.
• Sylens: No. You’re confusing will for sentimentality.
• Aloy: You’re wrong. Remember—she knew it wasn’t enough for GAIA to think. She taught GAIA to feel. To care. To sacrifice. To believe in life. Enough to fight against hopelessness. If it wasn’t for that “sentimentality,” life would have ended. You and I would never have existed.
• Sylens: Your argument is sound. I’m sorry for your…loss.

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[Aloy is listening to an audio journal entry from Elisabet Sobeck]

• Elisabet Sobeck: I remember yelling that I didn’t care. And that’s when my mother took my face in her hands and…spoke.
• GAIA: Query: What did she say?
• Elisabet Sobeck: She said I had to care. She said, “Elisabet, being smart will count for nothing if you don’t make the world a better place. You have to use your smarts to count for something, to serve life, not death.”