Machines, Biomes, and Beauty in Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon: Zero Dawn is a beautiful game through and through. Such visually rich games make me feel that we are reaching an upper limit in terms of how much we can push the graphics in the current cycle.

If you don't believe that, then let me show you how good these graphics have become. All the shots in this post were taken in low to medium settings only. Hive front-ends also lie to compress them, which reduces the quality of the photo that you can see here. These were taken on a 1440p resolution. Imagine this as a 4k monitor and in the ultra quality presets. They would look amazing.

So, let's start with some desert shots.

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About one-third of the map is filled with deserts in this huge open-world game. I love to roam around here and take shots of cacti. There are a lot of dangerous machines in the game. A lot of the common ones are found in almost all the biomes.

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These seem to be inspired by dogs. You can see the resemblance. They are quick and dangerous if you are not well-equipped. But in the mid to late game stage, they are not much of a challenge.

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The Thunderjaws are more challenging. They are capable of killing you in a few quick shots. You've got to study these machines and look for their weak points and against which element they are weak too.

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There are tall observer machines called Tallnecks, which I call Giraffes of Horizon Zero Dawn. They have a disk head, and we have to climb on their disk head to scan the map and uncover the points of interest. There are multiple Tallnecks in this game, each with its own challenges. Mostly surrounded by human and machine enemies.

Let's go to the Snow biome now. This is my favourite biome in the game. Maybe because I love snow, but it looks so beautiful. Look at it.

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There is no safe place here; flying machines roam around here and feed on the corpses of other machines. Are they eating metals? How are they flying with so much metal as well? There are a lot of physics questions I have, but who cares?

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There are a lot of weather conditions in the game. I wish you could control it with the Photo mode. Other than changing weather conditions, it has almost all the features that a good photo mode in such a beautiful game should have. I love the fog in the snow. It snows here, too, not as frequently as I would like. Maybe those conditions are reserved for missions.

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Aloy's hair looked a bit weird in this shot.

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This next shot is very interesting. I saw two big trees that were growing on top of a mountain, literally out of rocks. One of them was a dead one with no branches, and the other one was full of leaves. The contrasting nature of these trees intrigued me a lot.

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I love the dense vegetation in the game. I reached a flat plain where you can see the diversity of flora. It was full of colourful flowers, grass, and many shrubs.

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Let me know if you liked these shots and which one is your favourite.