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10 Essential Horizon Zero Dawn Tips for the Complete Edition
Your guide to survival in the main game and The Frozen Wilds.
Guerrilla Games has just released the complete edition of its action-role-playing game Horizon: Zero Dawn, allowing you to play through both the main campaign and its DLC, The Frozen Wilds.
Aloy's adventure can get pretty tough, so we’re offering you even more of our expert advice to help you get through it. Below you’ll find some of our top tips that will help you survive Horizon Zero Dawn and its DLC.
1. Talk to the merchants
Seek out the merchants
© Guerrilla Games / Sony
Merchants are extremely useful in the game. You can talk to them to buy rare items, get new outfits, and shift unwanted scrap. They also sell maps that let you see where specific collectibles are located.
Pretty much every merchant has a unique set of items, so set aside some time to look at what's on offer. You can find them in most major settlements and sometimes in the wild near campsites. Their presence is marked on the map by a pair of antlers.
2. Unlock all the campfires
Unlock campfires to travel around the map more quickly
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You can only fast-travel to campfires you’ve already unlocked, so make sure to discover any that you see while you’re out exploring. Look out for the grey campfire icon at the top of the screen. If one appears, it means there’s a campfire right in that direction.
Unlocking campfires gives you more options for fast-travelling, and will make backtracking in side quests far less tedious.
3. Complete Cauldrons
Complete these dungeons to find out how to override different machines
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Cauldrons are optional dungeons found throughout the main campaign. There are four in total and they’re usually found dug into hillsides. You can finish them to earn XP and learn how to override different types of machines, so they’re definitely worth spending your time on. They will make some of the later challenges in the game significantly easier and give you some more creative ways to approach objectives.
4. Modify your equipment
Make sure you keep on top of your weapon mods
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The weapon system in Horizon Zero Dawn can be quite confusing to begin with, but it’s incredibly useful once you get the hang of it. You can add modifications to your items to improve Aloy’s abilities, like stealth and damage resistance. So find a moment every now and then to change your gear and swap modifications out for new ones you may have picked up. It’s much easier to do if you keep on top of it.
5. Focus on your environment
Scan items and you may find solutions to puzzles
© Guerilla Games / Sony
Confused about the plot? Or simply want to know more about a particular location in the game? Throughout the world you can find items to scan with your focus to reveal additional information.
These items are usually found in older structures and will add notes and audio logs to your notebook once they’ve been interacted with.
Get into the habit of looking for them. Not only will it increase your chances of getting achievements, but it will also sometimes reveal solutions to puzzles and give you an idea on where to head next.
6. Learn to repair mounts
You can replair mounts in The Frozen Wilds
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The Frozen Wilds introduces a whole new set of abilities to learn as part of the traveller skill tree. These mostly focus on mounted interactions and let you do things like pick up items while on machines and repair broken Striders and Broadheads using metal shards. Put some time into levelling up this ability. It makes getting around the map far simpler and will ensure you always have a mount to escape on.
7. Become a hoarder
The Hoarder ability makes fetch quests easier
© Guerilla Games / Sony
Finding room for new items in your resource satchel can be a nuisance. Fortunately, The Frozen Wilds solves this problem with the introduction of the Hoarder skill. This ability expands your available resource slots by 20%, allowing you to collect a lot more.
This makes completing fetch quests far simpler, as you don’t have to worry about juggling resources to pick up new items. You’ll need three skill points to unlock it, so make sure to save up in order to earn the required amount.
8. Take down control towers
Use the override method to take down control towers
© Guerilla Games / Sony
Control towers are another new addition. They constantly heal nearby enemies, so you need to take them down before tackling the affected machines within their range. You can do this by destroying the blaze sack hanging off the side of the tower or by overriding it.
The latter method is preferable, as it means there’s far less chance of alerting enemies with the resulting blast. Use tall grass to get close enough to the tower, and highlight the paths of the surrounding machines to keep out of view. Once you’ve done that, all you need to do is override it with your staff. Taking down control towers gives you added XP and will make the map far safer to travel in future.
9. Approach enemies cautiously
Use stealth and traps to take out enemies
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You may be tempted to take enemies head on, but it pays to be cautious. Horizon: Zero Dawn has a number of enemies that can make short work of you, so whenever possible try to take them down quietly using stealth and traps.
Watch out for Corrupted Machines and Daemonic robots, in particular. You can tell these enemies apart by their unique colour schemes (red and purple). They’re more aggressive than normal enemies and are also a lot stronger, so try to split them up to deal with them individually.
10. Stock plenty of resist potions
You have to use resist potions in The Frozen Wilds
© Guerilla Games / Sony
You can go through most of the main game without buying resist potions, but that’s not the case in The Frozen Wilds. A number of the new enemies, such as the Scorcher and the Frostclaw, use powerful elemental attacks, requiring you to always keep a stock of resist potions on hand. You can buy these items from merchants or craft them yourself from raw ingredients.
