Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds

Lore & Background

The Frozen Wilds takes place in the Cut, a snow-covered mountainous region corresponding to a post-apocalyptic version of Yellowstone National Park. The narrative is set concurrently with the events of the base game and follows Aloy as she investigates a mysterious entity known as the Daemon, which is corrupting the region's animal-like machines and making them more aggressive. The region is predominantly inhabited by the Banuk, a nomadic tribe of survivalists and shamans who revere the blue light of the machines. Aloy learns from Banuk chieftain Aratak that his sister Ourea, a prominent shaman, has disappeared after attempting to communicate with a Spirit she believes can stop the Daemon. Aloy tracks Ourea to an ancient facility converted into a Banuk shrine, where Ourea explains that the Spirit, residing within a mountain facility called Thunder's Drum, has been silenced and overtaken by the Daemon. Aloy challenges Aratak for leadership and, after defeating him in a hunting competition, ascends Thunder's Drum with Aratak and Ourea. Inside, they discover the facility is Firebreak, an ancient project built to stabilize the Yellowstone Caldera. The Spirit is revealed to be CYAN, an artificial intelligence designed to manage the facility, while the Daemon is HEPHAESTUS, a rogue terraforming AI that hijacked CYAN to mass-produce hunter-killer machines. Ourea sacrifices herself to sever HEPHAESTUS's connection, allowing CYAN to transfer its core systems to an auxiliary data center at the Banuk shrine. Aloy and Aratak escape the collapsing complex, and Aloy reunites with CYAN, who provides information about the ancient past and HEPHAESTUS's motives.

Reader's Guide

Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds is significant as the only expansion for the critically acclaimed base game, expanding its world and narrative while introducing substantial gameplay and technical enhancements. The expansion raises the maximum player level from 50 to 60 and adds a new skill tree focused on inventory management and mounted traversal. It introduces a specialized economy centered on a rare crystalline resource for trading high-tier Banuk gear, including new weapons and outfits, and allows upgrading Aloy's melee spear with modification slots. Combat is made more challenging with Daemonic machine variants that have increased health, elemental resistances, and immunity to hacking, as well as three new machine species: the Scorcher, Frostclaw, and Fireclaw. Control Towers act as environmental hazards that heal hostile machines and disable hacked allied machines. The expansion's development focused on the Banuk tribe's culture, drawing geographical inspiration from Yellowstone National Park. Guerrilla upgraded their Decima engine to feature dynamic snow deformation, interactive water rendering, and advanced 3D cloud rendering, and updated motion capture technology for more realistic character animations. The narrative, inspired by the film 2010 (1984), explores themes of artificial intelligence and environmental control. The Frozen Wilds received generally favourable reviews and was the fourth most-downloaded PlayStation 4 add-on of 2017, cementing its legacy as a notable expansion that deepened the lore and challenge of Horizon Zero Dawn.

Did You Know?

• The expansion is set concurrently with the main campaign of Horizon Zero Dawn.
• The Cut is a post-apocalyptic version of Yellowstone National Park.
• The expansion introduces three new machine species: the Scorcher, Frostclaw, and Fireclaw.
• The development team upgraded the Decima engine to feature a dynamic snow deformation system.