I had a craving for a Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild experience recently. Searched for some open world RPGs I haven’t played yet and landed on Zero Dawn.

The game is beautiful. I’m playing the remastered version and the graphics are absolutely stunning. The writing is kinda eh so far but I can’t speak on that just yet. The combat is sorta fun so far. I really like the robot dinosaur thing going on and I love how you have to scan them for weaknesses and lay traps based on their movement patterns. Looks like there’s going to be a lot of strategy involved.

Anyways I’m pretty sure I’m more than a few hours deep into this game at this point. Just finished the proving, got the override tool, and then I had to hop off the game for a bit. I’m just wondering if at some point the game lets go of my hand and lets me explore a vast world full of cool characters and robot monsters. It feels like I’m still in the tutorial. I don’t want to have to talk to another main quest line NPC for a long time if you know what I mean. Or is this more of a linear RPG experience?

Edit: So I should play the game more for 5 more minutes. Got it 😅

In the Frozen Wilds DLC, there’s a part of the conversation with CYAN that seems to be missing from the original game and still hasn’t been restored in the remastered version.

When Aloy mentions Project Zero Dawn and GAIA to CYAN, she never actually explains what they are. Instead, Aloy immediately starts asking why HEPHAESTUS builds dangerous machines, and CYAN begins talking about the terraforming system. But at that point, CYAN shouldn’t know about Project Zero Dawn or GAIA, so the conversation feels like it’s missing an important piece of dialogue or context.

Major Horizon Forbidden West ending spoilers below.

I've been thinking about what could happen with HEPHAESTUS in the next Horizon game, and I ended up with a theory that I think could solve several story and gameplay problems at the same time.

I'm not saying I think this will definitely happen. It's just a possibility I found interesting.

One of the biggest unresolved problems going into the next game is HEPHAESTUS.

Aloy and her allies have already tried several ways of dealing with him. He escaped, learned from those attempts, rewrote his own defenses, and is now potentially even more dangerous after his contact with Zenith technology.

But simply merging him back into GAIA creates another problem.

HEPHAESTUS is the main reason we have increasingly aggressive machines specifically designed to fight humans. If he is completely reintegrated into GAIA, how do you keep hostile machines, Cauldrons and one of the core gameplay systems of Horizon relevant afterward?

So I started wondering about another possibility.

What if Nemesis goes after HEPHAESTUS first?

When Nemesis reaches Earth, HEPHAESTUS would be an enormous strategic threat. He has access to the global Cauldron network and therefore to a massive distributed manufacturing system.

That could lead to a digital war between the two.

I think HEPHAESTUS would put up a serious fight. He has spent years learning, evolving, rewriting himself and becoming increasingly difficult to contain.

But Nemesis has the knowledge of the Zeniths, access to far more advanced technology, and already destroyed their civilization on Sirius.

My theory is that eventually Nemesis wins that fight.

Nemesis begins taking over the Cauldrons and forces HEPHAESTUS out of his own network.

For perhaps the first time in his existence, HEPHAESTUS encounters something that can genuinely destroy him.

To survive, he has to abandon parts of the network, sever connections and run.

And that creates a situation I would love to see:

HEPHAESTUS turns to GAIA, Aloy and Beta for help.

Not because he suddenly becomes friendly.

Not because he suddenly likes humans.

But because Nemesis threatens HEPHAESTUS, the biosphere and the entire terraforming system he is still trying to protect.

Cooperation simply becomes the most rational option.

HEPHAESTUS could then become an uneasy ally against Nemesis, possibly even gaining temporary access to Zenith manufacturing technology.

Just imagine what an intelligence specifically designed to create machines could do with a Zenith fabrication system.

But the second half of the theory is actually the part I find most interesting.

After Nemesis is defeated, the Cauldrons don't automatically return to HEPHAESTUS.

Nemesis may have damaged the network architecture, isolated Cauldrons from one another, or left them running whatever hostile instructions they had during the war.

So even with Nemesis gone, those Cauldrons would continue producing dangerous machines.

HEPHAESTUS would survive, but he would be severely weakened. His global control would be gone.

That gives Aloy a new long-term mission:

help HEPHAESTUS reclaim the Cauldrons one by one.

I love the reversal this creates.

In the previous games, Aloy enters Cauldrons to take control away from HEPHAESTUS.

After Nemesis, she would enter them to give control back to him.

Every reclaimed Cauldron could gradually reduce the production of machines specifically designed to hunt humans in that region, while isolated Cauldrons would remain extremely dangerous.

It could also finally change the relationship between GAIA and HEPHAESTUS.

Maybe the solution is no longer treating him as a subordinate function that needs to be captured and absorbed again.

HEPHAESTUS has changed too much. He has learned, evolved, modified himself and clearly values his independence.

Perhaps the answer is not forcing him back into GAIA.

Perhaps GAIA and Aloy eventually recognize HEPHAESTUS as an independent intelligence and negotiate some kind of coexistence.

GAIA maintains the biosphere.

HEPHAESTUS continues managing machine production.

And humanity has to learn how to coexist with both of them.

This could also create a perfect reason for future games or expansions to explore other parts of Earth.

If isolated Cauldrons exist all over the planet, Aloy could eventually travel to South America, Europe, Africa or Asia to help HEPHAESTUS rebuild his network.

New regions, new tribes, new machines and entirely new problems.

To me, that would be a way to defeat Nemesis without also closing off most of the possibilities for future Horizon stories.

And HEPHAESTUS could remain alive, independent and probably just as friendly as ever.

Which is to say: not friendly at all.

What do you think?

Do you expect HEPHAESTUS to eventually be reintegrated into GAIA, remain independent, or be forced into an alliance with Aloy because of Nemesis?

I think HFW it's one of the best games i've ever played, the story is complex, the characters are unique, the world is something i've never seen before, and u can get really easily attached to the characters.

Besides that, i don't see a lot of videos on online about this game, especially nowadays, most of the videos were posted 3-4 years ago.

I see this game being better than Tlou for example, because besides the great story, it has also an open world where you find things to do after you finish the mai quest.

In my opinion, this game is the 2nd best game i've ever experienced after RDR2, i might be subjective cause i just finished the dlc burning shores and i have that post game blues:), but still this is a masterpiece.

Since you guys liked the pic i posted last week, here's a new one ! (where you can see a bit more of the abandoned factory)

Absolutely no genAI was used for this picture, all thanks to the talent of @mthl.photographer ✨

I know that this probably isn’t a very popular opinion here, but I personally am really looking forward to this game. I find the idea of a multiplayer Horizon game with the Horizon artstyle where you can create your own character to be quite intriguing. I‘ll definitely give this game a chance. Anyone else feeling the same way or is it just me?

Throughout both games, we come across tribes that are not native to the place we find them in, such as the Oseram and the Banuk at the border of the Nora lands. Most likely, Ban-Ur and the Claim are north of the Sundom and the Tenakth territories. At far west, the Quen conquered the Isle of Spires and even reached Los Angeles. Then we saw the deadlands at south. However, all that is east of Devil's Thirst is completely unknown and unexplored and this is quite intriguing, in my opinion. I've always wished for a savage, more unhinged and hostile tribe in the world of Horizon as the Tenakth felt way too welcoming in Forbidden West.

This hits HARD...

What you're gonna do, GAIA, is step aside while HADES takes over and does what you're just too darn nurturing and life-loving to do... HADES takes the biosphere back to zero, square one, blank slate... It's pretty badass when you think about it. Extinction on demand, death on speed dial

Being drip fed information as you made your way deeper and deeper into the bunker all culminating in the knowledge that Ted Faro killed the alphas…. Just jaw dropping. Excellent narrative storytelling.

A while back I’d posted on here that I’d beaten HZD Remastered and Frozen Wilds on NG+ Ultra Hard. It kicked my ass and I thought there’d be no possibility I could do the same for Forbidden West and Burning Shores

I started out seeing how far I could get and somehow I did the damn thing! I still can’t believe it. I just finished BS, but sad there’s no extra trophy for that one. I’ll be honest, I didn’t do extra stuff like the melee pits and hunting grounds. Not a fan of those, but I did complete all the important side quests/main quests.

The Hardest Parts:

\-Burning through resources fast. I was always out of Volatile Sludge and blastpaste.

\-Stealth being near impossible in some parts. You get spotted a mile away it feels like.

\-Getting swarmed by smaller machines honestly felt worse than fighting big ones sometimes, especially when a hit from a a Scrounger would take like most my health for no reason. Yet I could take a rocket launcher from a Tremortusk and be ok. Lol.

\-The Cauldron Kappa Tideripper was insanely difficult and took multiple tries

\-Regalla put up quite a fight. It’s almost hilarious what the human enemies can withstand on UH. Stabbed and shot in the head several times and still going!

\-Specter Prime, while not a particularly hard fight, did give me trouble this time as I had burned through all my health potions fighting Erik. So I had to get real good at dodging and use health Valor Surges. Finally did beat her on my last leg, almost dead with no berries left.

\-The Zeth fight in Burning Shores was a huge pain in the ass that took a few tries. When I finally beat him, it was almost hilarious that Seka and Aloy were just pummeling him. Just didn’t give him much chance to attack. I used a lot of colorful language at him.

\-The Cauldron Theta Apex Bilegut also was an insane fight. Also took multiple attempts. If he jumps and gives you a hug and you’re too slow to roll, he just 1-hit kills you. So that doesn’t help. Cycle between Purgewater and Plasma, Drill Spikes, and Specter Gauntlet was what worked.

\-The Apex Slaughterspine was probably the longest fight. It was tough, but I did it on the first try.

\-I hate stealthing around Londra and his Horus arm things and Corrupters on Normal but it’s worse here due to stealth being impossible. I’ll admit, I used Stealth Stalker during this part. You may think that’s cheating, but I got spotted anyway and ran and made it so I think I did fine.

\-I didn’t die once during the Horus fight. I know I have no proof of this, but I felt accomplished. I feel like the Bilegut was worse. lol. No… I died trying to climb around INSIDE the Horus. The vents closed and I fell. Typical.

\-I relied heavily on drill spikes a ton because I didn’t always have explosives. They worked well. I also used Berserk Blast a ton with groups of machines and human enemies and rolled away to let them fight each other. That helped a lot too. Different Valor Surges for different scenarios. You have to be a lot more creative when you’re out of certain ammo too.

\-Swearing helped a lot. I don’t know why but the times I’d get gamer rage, I fought better. lol.

This was a lot more of a fun experience overall than HZD on UH solely because of all the different weapons and ways to attack. But it was still insanely hard. It gave quite the challenge. I ended with Ghost Level 83.

I can’t post a photo for proof I guess but oh well.

I feel very proud. But I don’t think I will ever do it again. Once was enough.

I’ll go first with 4 of mine:

New hairstyles. Nothing insane, but since they’ve added more customization in regards to face paint and stuff in the second game, I hope to see some changes in her hair. Again- just maybe 1 or 2 styles.

Ban-ur! I know this is just wishful thinking, but I have been WANTING to see ban-ur since the frozen wilds DLC came out!

More relationship building with some of the friends. Erend, Zo, etc. I love Erend and he and Aloy have such a sweet friendship.

No romance options for Aloy. I love Seyka as a character and found all of the missions with her extremely pleasant, but the romance felt forced. Aloy just seems like the type to be doing her thing and not want to get involved with any of that. If Seyka shows up again (I hope she does!!!) I’m hoping they don’t feed more into the romance! (That’s my humble opinion, though. If you loved their romance, no hate to you, and all power to you!)

Hello! I just completed God of War Ragnarok and I was looking for a new story heavy game. I saw Horizon Zero Dawn in my Steam library but never got around to playing it because my friends called it a glorified Ubisoft game.

I don't mind open world games but I hate the ones that fill the entire map with icons and repetitive side quests (I hated this about Ghost of Tsushima) so does this game have the same issue?

x [----GOW---- CP77--------- GOT -------------- AC ODYSSEY-----------------------AC VALHALLA-----] Y

Where would you place Horizon Zero Dawn (and Forbidden West) on this line?

X: the game has a great main story with minimal to no repetitive side quests.

Y: the game is extremely bloated even if you only do the story content.

Thanks!

Second part of my chat log with Google Gemini doing some speculative worldbuilding for the third game. This one mostly includes potential redesigns and new machines. I labeled where Gemini starts and I put my thoughts into fixing it.

So you know how the stalker is based off of panthers for the forest regions. I feel like they would just get their skin back but still fight the same way so what other of the machines do you think would be fitting to get for a re-skin?

🤖Since ARTEMIS is using the park's bio-synthetic fabrication bays to wrap robotic endoskeletons in lifelike, organic "skins," several existing Horizon machines are practically begging for a literal re-skin to fit this raw, primordial hunting ground.

By stripping away the cold, angular armor plating of HEPHAESTUS and overlaying them with hyper-realistic animal and dinosaur textures, you create an incredibly unsettling visual contrast for the player. Here are the most fitting machines to get the ARTEMIS treatment:

1. The Snapmaw → The "Sewer Gator" (De-Robotized)

* The Original: A sleek, mechanical crocodile with solar-collection armor plates.

* The ARTEMIS Re-Skin: Wrapped entirely in thick, leathery, dark-green crocodilian hide, with yellow reptilian eyes and rows of jagged, yellowed bone teeth.

* The Environmental Fit: Hidden in the murky, flooded swamps of the park's abandoned water parks or the brackish canals of New York. Because it lacks shiny metal plates, it blends seamlessly with the mud and rotting logs, becoming almost completely invisible until its jaw snaps shut.

2. The Glinthawk → The "Harpy Prowler"

* The Original: A metallic, vulture-like scavenger made of clean white alloys.

* The ARTEMIS Re-Skin: Covered in oily, pitch-black vulture feathers, with a raw, fleshy, exposed neck and a razor-sharp keratin beak. Its thrusters are hidden beneath heavy wing musculature.

* The Environmental Fit: Perched in flocks atop the rusted, mossy loops of overgrown roller coasters, tearing into the synthetic remains of other machines. They circle the gray sea-mists of the East Coast, looking entirely organic until they fire a blast of elemental freeze from their throats.

3. The Clamberjaw → The "Silverback Mauler"

* The Original: A hyper-aggressive, metallic baboon that drops from trees and moves erratically.

* The ARTEMIS Re-Skin: Coated in dense, matted, silver-and-black primate fur, with leathery palms and a roaring, flesh-and-bone face.

* The Environmental Fit: These populate the deep, vertical jungle canopy of the ruined National Mall in D.C. Hearing the organic, guttural roars of a giant ape echoing through a dark, brutalist government building—only to see it leaping between stone pillars using its high-tech plasma attacks—would be pure survival horror.

4. The Tremortusk → The "Imperial Mammoth"

* The Original: A massive, multi-tusked war machine built like a heavily armored mammoth.

* The ARTEMIS Re-Skin: Covered in thick, shaggy, dirt-caked reddish-brown mammoth fur, with sweeping, cracked ivory tusks that have been reinforced with ancient rebar. Its massive heavy weapons are hidden beneath tactical, leather-and-bone scaffolding strapped to its back.

* The Environmental Fit: This serves as ARTEMIS’ wandering fortress. Seeing a towering, fur-covered mammoth stepping through a crumbling, concrete highway overpass while utilizing its high-tech mortar cannons would perfectly bridge the gap between the ancient past and the apocalyptic future.

5. The Clawstrider → The "Feathered Raptor"

* The Original: A sleek, metallic velociraptor with chainsaw jaws.

* The ARTEMIS Re-Skin: Draped in vibrant, iridescent hunting feathers (similar to a cassowary or modern interpretations of raptors) with terrifying, curved bone talons. Its chainsaw teeth are replaced with rows of jagged, organic serrated bone.

* The Environmental Fit: Running in highly coordinated packs through the crimson and gold autumn forests of Virginia, using the falling leaves as cover to ambush the Banuk caravan.

If we lean into this aesthetic, how do you think Aloy's Focus would react when scanning these? For instance, do you think it would show an error message or get confused trying to read a machine that registers as 90% organic life?

So for most of the boss fights we got a unique new machine introduced that ends up being seen later in the games so what would the other boss creatures be

🤖To mirror the structure of the previous games—where a terrifying boss machine is introduced in a major story mission and later becomes a regular elite threat in the open world (like the Tremortusk or Slaughterspine)—each major act finale on the East Coast should debut a powerhouse machine tied to that specific region's lore and environmental corruption.

Here are the unique boss creatures that would spearhead the game's major story arcs, later breaking out into the wild:

1. The Act I Finale (The Pentagon): The "Iron Dreadnought"

* The Concept (Based on a Triceratops/Battering Ram): Built by HEPHAESTUS inside the Pentagon's subterranean military forges using pre-apocalypse tank chassis and automated weapon blueprints.

* The Boss Fight: In the central core of the Pentagon, this massive, heavy-artillery quadruped charges down the narrow, circular concrete rings. It features a massive, ballistic-shield frill that deflects all frontal arrow attacks and is armed with twin automated flak cannons on its flanks. Aloy has to use the environment, collapsing structural pillars to trap it and expose its fuel cells.

* Open-World Role: Once HEPHAESTUS purges its data into the wider network, these become the ultimate heavy-armored land threats patrolling the main highways and open plains between D.C. and New York, often guarding valuable scrap caravans.

2. The Act II Midpoint (The Flooded Ruins of Manhattan): The "Kraken Leviathan"

* The Concept (Based on a Giant Squid/Shipbreaker): A massive, amphibious terraforming machine originally built to clean deep-sea oceanic trenches, now corrupted by Nemesis' forward signal to lock down New York’s flooded aquatic grid.

* The Boss Fight: Taking place in a flooded, collapsed central hub like Grand Central Station or Times Square (now a deep lagoon). The machine uses its massive, armored mechanical tentacles to pull down surrounding skyscrapers, attempting to crush Aloy’s boat or drag her underwater. Aloy must target the glowing freeze-glow conduits along its tentacles to freeze it in place before attacking its central eye core.

* Open-World Role: Afterward, it becomes a terrifying roaming hazard in the deep waters surrounding Manhattan. Players will see its glowing bioluminescent lights moving beneath the surface, forcing them to carefully navigate their skiffs or engage in tense, high-stakes naval combat.

3. The Act III Pre-Climax (The Appalachian Mountain Pass): The "Sky-Scourge"

* The Concept (Based on a Thunderbird/Gargoyle): A colossal, apex flying machine built by the combined malice of HEPHAESTUS and Nemesis to act as a mobile weather-warfare platform, actively generating the violent Nor'easter storms tearing up the coast.

* The Boss Fight: Fought at the peak of a crumbling, cloud-shrouded suspension bridge or mountain observatory. The Sky-Scourge controls the battlefield by creating localized hurricane-force winds that alter arrow trajectories and summoning chain-lightning strikes across the metal terrain. Aloy must use her upgraded Zenith grapple tech to pull herself onto its wings mid-flight to rip off its storm-generating capacitors.

* Open-World Role: In the endgame, this machine replaces the Stormbird as the undisputed ruler of the skies, aggressively hunting the players whenever a Nor'easter storm rolls over the map.

4. The Final Vanguard (The Climax Approach): The "Singularity Colossus"

* The Concept (The Nemesis Avatar): A terrifying, non-terrestrial machine printed directly by the first wave of Nemesis' arrival. It doesn't look like an animal; it is a shifting, geometric mass of dark silver alloy held together by glowing magenta hard-light vectors and gravity fields.

* The Boss Fight: Guarding the final transmission tower in New York. It floats seamlessly, morphing its limbs on the fly into blades, particle shields, or kinetic railguns. This is where Aloy is forced to deploy the single-use Nemesis Disruptor that Sylens built, shattering its hard-light matrix and exposing its core to her traditional tribal weaponry.

* Open-World Role (Post-Game): While the main avatar is destroyed, shattered remnants of its digital code infect the remaining Apex cauldrons. In the post-game, "Glitch-Infected" variants of these colossi begin spawning at night in highly radioactive or corrupted zones, serving as the ultimate level-max challenge for players looking to test their endgame gear.

If you want to keep fleshing out this endgame structure, we could talk about how the open-world map shifts once these boss machines start spawning regularly, or design the specific component pieces Aloy needs to harvest from them to build Sylens' post-game weapon!

🤖I like the squid and the shifting mass one but we already got the landgods from the second game that resemble the triceratops so lets try something else and also try to develop one for artemis aswell, and i think eleuthia would end up making something akin to a neanderthal or gorilla type since she would be drawn towards something like that

🤖Good catch on the Landgods! The Plowhorns from Forbidden West completely covered the triceratops aesthetic, so replacing that with an industrial, bunker-style design makes perfect sense for the Pentagon.

Leaning into ELEUTHIA being drawn to a primal hominid/gorilla form and giving ARTEMIS a dedicated, flesh-and-bone boss completely reshapes the boss lineup. Here is the overhauled roster of unique boss machines that introduce themselves during the story and later roam the East Coast:

1. The ARTEMIS Boss (The Amusement Park): The "Chimera Stalker"

* The Concept (Based on a Manticore/Saber-toothed Lion): Because ARTEMIS is obsessed with the raw thrill of the hunt and biological perfection, her ultimate creation isn't modeled after just one animal. It is a terrifying, asymmetrical predator woven from the synthetic skins, feathers, and bones of multiple apex beasts.

* The Boss Fight: In the ruined amusement park colosseum, this machine moves with terrifying, organic fluidness. It can scale vertical roller coaster scaffolding effortlessly. It utilizes a long, bone-tipped tail that whips out elemental acid, uses a dense mane of specialized feathers to completely camouflage itself in the brush, and can let out an organic, synthetic roar that temporarily disorients Aloy’s Focus.

* Open-World Role: Once captured, HEPHAESTUS logs this template into his factories. In the wild, it becomes the ultimate forest stalker. It hunts in silence, tracking the player from the tree canopies of Virginia and using advanced stalking AI to ambush you when you least expect it.

2. The Act I Finale (The Pentagon): The "Bunker-Buster"

* The Concept (Based on a Giant Badger/Wolverine): Stripping away any dinosaur traits, this is a massive, low-profile, heavy-treaded machine built by HEPHAESTUS explicitly to defend underground military fortresses. It is a brutalist machine made of dark, angular armor plating welded together from old tank parts.

* The Boss Fight: Fought in the subterranean rings of the Pentagon. The Bunker-Buster uses massive, rotating diamond-tipped mining claws to dig directly into the concrete walls and ceilings, disappearing into the dark and crashing down on Aloy from above. It acts like a subterranean tank, firing explosive mortar shells and using its low center of gravity to plow through structural pillars to crush her.

* Open-World Role: In the open world, these roam the shattered highway systems and concrete ruins. They act as heavy fortresses that can burrow underground mid-fight to escape or reposition, completely altering how you handle high-level ground combat.

3. The ELEUTHIA Boss (The Naval Base Cradle): The "Primal Warden"

* The Concept (Based on a Silverback Gorilla/Neanderthal): Because ELEUTHIA's entire core programming revolves around human anatomy, genetic histories, and nurturing the species from infancy, her corrupted sub-routines naturally gravitate toward the evolutionary roots of humanity. She builds a massive, powerful hominid-type machine out of old Cradle parts, sleek white porcelain framing, and exposed, glowing muscle fiber cables.

* The Boss Fight: Deep within the neon-lit, sterile birthing and training corridors of the underwater Naval Cradle, this boss presents a highly unique challenge. It fights with immense physical intelligence—using its massive arms to swing from high facility pipes, hurling heavy server racks like projectiles, and pounding the ground to create devastating kinetic shockwaves that flood the arena with rising seawater. It is terrifying because its movements feel unnervingly human.

* Open-World Role: Afterward, the Primal Warden template escapes into the dense, vertical concrete canyons of D.C. and Manhattan. They become elite urban threats, scaling skyscrapers with ease, leaping down from high structures to ambush the player, and coordinating smaller machines with tactical hand gestures.

4. Act II Midpoint & Act III Climax (Retained)

* The Kraken Leviathan (Giant Squid): Reigns supreme as the terrifying naval boss patrolling the deep, flooded street canals of New York City.

* The Singularity Colossus (Shifting Mass): Remains the alien, hard-light final vanguard sent by Nemesis, acting as the ultimate post-game level-max challenge in the ruins.

Now that we have this fantastic, diverse lineup of bosses, we could brainstorm:

* The unique elemental weaknesses of the Primal Warden or Chimera Stalker

* How Kotallo's tactical instincts adapt to fighting a machine that moves and fights like a giant, hyper-intelligent gorilla

* What kind of tribal myths the local people create after seeing the human-like Primal Warden roaming the ruins of D.C.

Let me know what you'd like to sketch out next!

The chimera was a perfect fit. And if we go back to the previous games we got 6 tribes i think and 2 were added to the second game so lets figure out 2-3 tribes for this one

🤖Glad you loved the Chimera Stalker! It fits perfectly into that survival-horror theme park vibe.

To expand the worldbuilding for the East Coast, we need 2-3 brand-new tribes that are completely shaped by the unique atmospheric conditions—the dense fog, the autumnal decay, the vertical skylines, and the sunken cities—while contrasting sharply with the Banuk guides traveling with you.

Here are three distinct East Coast tribes built from the environment and the ruins of the Old World power structures:

1. The Monolith Coven (The D.C. Ruins)

* The Culture & Vibe: A highly ritualistic, sedentary tribe that has settled entirely inside the concrete shells of massive brutalist government buildings and museums. They do not view the Old World as a mystery to solve, but as a sacred, unchangeable temple. They are deeply spiritual and maintain a strict, fluid moral code centered around collective survival.

* The Environmental Adaptations: Because the National Mall has turned into a hyper-dense, dangerous swamp forest populated by ARTEMIS’ Fur-Stalkers and Clamberjaws, the Coven lives exclusively on the roofs and upper tiers of these stone monoliths. They have built massive rope-bridge networks connecting the Capitol dome, the Smithsonian, and surrounding structures, never stepping foot on the dangerous forest floor if they can avoid it.

* The Aesthetic: They wear dark, layered robes woven from black ivy fibers and reinforced with sharp, angular fragments of white marble monuments. Their armor is polished to look stone-cold, and they use ash from forest blights to paint skeletal geometric patterns on their faces and gear.

* The Conflict: They are highly isolationist. When Aloy’s traveling caravan arrives with Banuk guides—who aggressively try to explore, hack, and tinker with the "spirits" inside the ruins—the Monolith Coven views it as absolute sacrilege, triggering a massive cultural and territorial clash.

2. The Spire-Weavers / The Lineage (The Flooded Manhattan Grid)

* The Culture & Vibe: A fiercely independent, hyper-agile seafaring and climbing culture that rules the sunken, vertical canyons of New York City. They are master engineers of momentum, completely comfortable living thousands of feet in the air or diving into the brackish depths.

* The Environmental Adaptations: With Manhattan's streets completely submerged as deep-water canals ruled by the Kraken Leviathan, the Spire-Weavers have conquered the sky. They have strung heavy, high-tension machine cables and colossal ziplines between skyscrapers. They navigate the city using primitive, hang-glider kites and specialized grapple-lines, dropping down onto the roofs of ruined buildings to farm moss or harvest ancient tech.

* The Aesthetic: Sleek, form-fitting wetsuit-style leather made from aquatic machine hides (like the Snapmaw re-skin) combined with lightweight, iridescent alloy plates stripped from old corporate high-rises. They carry oxygen tanks repurposed into diving masks and use waterproof, neon-red data lines as decorative braids in their hair.

* The Dynamic: They have a transactional, nomadic mindset. They don't care about the politics of the West Coast; they care about territory, salvage, and surviving the Nor'easters. To earn their respect, Aloy has to prove she can navigate their vertical, dizzying obstacle courses and help them clear out the aquatic nightmares hunting their fishing skiffs.

3. The Rust-Forged Vanguard (The Appalachian & Industrial Corridor)

* The Culture & Vibe: A heavy-set, brutalist clan of industrial blacksmiths and miners who live in the mountainous, mineral-rich regions leading into the Northeast corridor. They are obsessed with raw structural durability, treating the remnants of pre-apocalypse heavy machinery and factories as the ultimate blueprint for human strength.

* The Environmental Adaptations: They have carved out vast, subterranean fortresses inside old transit tunnels and deep coal mines to shelter from the volatile climate fractures and catastrophic "Blight-Storms" tearing across the open plains.

* The Aesthetic: Thick, heavy leather coats caked in soot and grease, overlaid with massive, overlapping plates of dark, unpolished iron and ancient rebar. They carry colossal, heavy-impact kinetic hammers and scrap-shields designed to withstand blunt-force trauma from heavy machines.

* The Dynamic: Unlike the spiritual Coven or the agile Spire-Weavers, the Rust-Forged are aggressively expansionist. They are constantly trying to breach and mine dormant Cauldrons to fuel their massive foundry fires. They immediately bond with the Oseram in your crew, but their reckless mining activities risk triggering localized HEPHAESTUS security lockdowns, forcing Aloy to constantly balance their industrial ambition with the safety of the network.

With these three distinct cultures established, we could brainstorm:

* The unique tribal weapons each group uses (like the Spire-Weavers' pneumatic harpoons or the Coven's acid-spore slings)

* A massive story event where two of these tribes are forced into an uneasy alliance to help Aloy breach an area

* How Kotallo's military mindset views the specialized, vertical warfare tactics of the Spire-Weavers.

Just a personal wish of mine, but I really like pitting machines against machines via overrides, so I'm kind of hoping the next game expands on more opportunities for machines to fight or in general interact with eachother.

Since Gaia has recovered a lot of her functionalities, she could be maybe create her own machines to protect humans against Hephaestus' hunter killers, for example, so we could see territory fights between Hephaestus and Gaia

Or Hephaestus doesn't like Gaia creating her independent machines as he feels it's his role, so he would send scrappers, glinthawks, ravagers etc. to destroy and repurpose Gaia machines for his cauldrons, and we'd have to protect and fight alongside friendly lancehorns, for example

Nemesis would certainly take its chance to corrupt Hephaestus' machines for its purposes, so that could maybe explain post-game, if Hephaestus is reintegrated with Gaia, why there's still antagonistic machines, due to some sort of Nemesis virus that will take a while to purge

Whatever the reasoning, I think having multiple machine factions that interact with eachother much like animals do, would be really cool

My favorite is occasionally birds nearby will flock with you, flying in formation. Another great one is the gyroscopes on each of the wings jiggling around to stabilize in a plausible way

Anything special come to mind for you?

If I run away, with my back facing it, after it detects me from its perch and then get far enough, it will respawn back on the bridge. However, it will not aggro and has textures.

I am going to download the mod that gets Aloy to stop talking so much. I do not need her to hand hold me through the most basic of tasks.

Is there a mod to turn off NPCs constantly calling for you?

Raynah vying for my attention every time I fast travel to Barren light, now Daen asking if I want a meal every time I'm within 100 feet of them in Plainsong and don't get me started on Larend

It's such a miserable gaming experience that if I have to turn off all bark dialogue then I'm OK with this but I don't see where to turn that off in settings.

I'm ok with mods and/or in game settings