Horizon Zero Dawn: Beginner's guide & tips

Last update: 06 August 2020

In this chapter you will find the most important advice that isn't directly presented during the game. Knowing them might make the game much easier and more enjoyable.

• Kill wild animals
• Increase lifting capacity to maximum
• Invest in weapon
• Keep attention to markers of the machines
• Use Focus

Kill wild animals

The game directly informs you that machines are the main threat and the source of resources. Local fauna is completely harmless and serves as a supplement to the game world. After activating the Focus you can however discover that wild animals are detected by the device and that you can mark them. Take advantage of that and frequently kill wild animals, including fish.

You can craft various key items thanks to the components you can obtain from them. This doesn't only include consumables like healing potions, but rare products that can for example increase Aloy's strength as well. These items are also valuable in trading.

Remember that items dropped from animals are random. Because of that you should kill each animal you encounter to increase the chance of getting the rarest items.

Increase lifting capacity to maximum

This point is somewhat connected to the previous one as in most cases increasing the capacity is possible only by using resources obtained from wild animals. Each "slot" can be upgraded four times, increasing the number of items you can take with you.

Even on the highest level the number of available slots is still lower that the number of components you can collect. Despite that, you should invest in lifting capacity as quickly as possible so that you can always have the most important resources with you whenever you need ammunition and so that the number of items left behind due to limited capacity is reduced.

Invest in weapon

This point isn't only about more types of weapons that increase the variety of available strategies. You should invest in ranks of ranged weapons. Each weapon has three classes represented with colors - green, blue and purple. With each new class a weapon gains additional ammunition type that you can use in battle.

Remember that you can have four types of weapons simultaneously. Having three types of ammunition to each of them will provide you with solution to all troubles.

Keep attention to markers of the machines

The most important aspect of the fights with machines is to stay hidden for as long as possible. The game doesn't suggest it directly, but the machine doesn't know about your presence until a yellow or red marker appears above its head. If you are shooting the machine from hiding or from a long distance, then you don't need to be afraid of retaliation unless there is a marker above its head.

Use Focus

Remember that the Focus found early in the game is one of the most important pieces of your equipment and it provides you with great advantage. It's not a tool that can be used only for scanning the ancient writings. It's a device that enables you to be always ahead of the opponents.

It enables you to temporarily highlight weak points of the machines you fight and to track them and human opponents through walls. Detected machines can be analyzed in order to learn their paths or weak points. Human opponents can be marked in order to see their location even after deactivating the device. This will enable you to easily assess the threat and make better decisions about exterminating the opponents.