Consequences of Unchecked Hubris. The Lore of HORIZON: ZERO DAWN! (pt. 1)

Hey! Future Tiptoe here. I'm not going to mention specifics, so as not to spoil anything for folks that play the sequel to this game that recently came out. But I'll be sure to let Past Tiptoe from June 2021 know that a certain part of Gaia was activated a few times to perform a certain function, so that Past Tiptoe from June 2021 can retcon her information with February 2022 information. Disregarding understandings from June 2021 should be paramount when considering the future of February 2022. Do you get it? Don't be that person. It's tiring. And it's becoming a problem for this video from June 2021. Keep spoilers and future game information out of your comment. -Tip

Anybody else of the opinion that Ted Faro’s destruction of Apollo was less about wanting to “protect innocents” and more about him not being able to live with being remembered forever as the man who destroyed the world?

Few games have made me HATE someone like HZD did with Ted Faro, and that kind of emotional investment means the story worked. It got me attached to this world.

You know a game's lore is dense when you need a forty minute video just to explain how we got to the opening scenes, which is just the way I like it.

I love the detail they added, when Faro announced that he deleted Apollo, a couple of the alphas are seen going to comfort a saddened Samina Ebadji, who developed Apollo. There’s so much emotion in this game it’s overwhelming sometimes

I felt like the way this game told it's story was really impactful, you find out what happened kinda slowly until the full horror of what happened is revealed. I remember that text/audio log that first really hit me hard was about them observing the machines consuming pods of dolphins for biomass. And then the fact that the militaries of the world even with conscripting civilians into their ranks couldn't defeat what Faro had created. It was disturbing and emotional - one of the best stories ive ever experienced in a video game imo.

at 31:20... an interesting thing i caught when the caretakers gave their last advice for the now adults. when they asked what they were going to do... i distinctly remember them saying "be brave" hence, the Nora Braves. Earned as a sort of right of passage, a distinction of skill, survival, and responsibility. the writing of this game, as of this video is very impressive. thank you for putting it all together.

I found myself tearing up a few times playing this for the first time. Not ugly rdr2 sobbing but very emotionally invested. The story somehow feels more personal learning and watching how the world ended, and knowing it was our world.

I love the way you tell stories. you tell the story in a way as to make it enticing and gripping. you really do deserve more viewers.

Fun fact from an Azorean: the average height of these volcanic islands makes it impossible for them to be completely swallowed up by the North Atlantic. the entirety of Portugal, Netherlands, and other European territories would be underwater before the Azores would :D

What I like about this story is that the Faro robots did not actually become intelligent, they were just dumb machines doing what they were supposed to do to continue operating, whilst the owner was locked out of their controls. So many videos get this wrong and think that the Faro robots become self-aware or something. They were just using their emergency mode to continue operating, they never anticipated that they would consume the entire world doing so.

Not only TED erasing Apolo feels like he didn't wanted to be remembered by the new humans in the far distant future as a devil so he decided to wipe everything out because he's a genius only when money is concerned. But also, this signal sent to Gaia suddenly with no reason, it seems really premeditated, almost like there's something watching humanity with enough clearance to send a signal that would change Gaia's subordinate functions in such a deep way it would turn them into IA, and chaos of course would start it but one of her functions was created to wipe out everything. It's almost like there's someone out there who actually thinks humanity is not worth it to be left in the earth so it decides to wipe out every bit of life in the earth, not only humanity. That flawed logic sounds way too much like Ted. The Fact that TED had a bunker made for himself only, the fact that he could communicate with the Alphas while they were sealed in a way the swarm wouldn't be able to find them, the fact that he had an Omega Override protocol, the fact that he alone survived for who knows how many years? You know what? I bet my money somehow he's responsible for that signal, be him a clone of himself (the project the alphas gave up, no one knows if TED took it for himself), or he turned himself into an AI or created an AI to essentially do his work once he's gone. After all, Gaia was not his creation, it was hers. Ted surely is the most spiteful person that ever lived in the earth and a cockroach has more moral and cares more about life than he does. XD

Love that this story is basically, humans creating a mechanical God that would heal the earth and give new life to their earth. When I first played the game, I thought the story would be downright stupid but I'm so happy I was wrong. Best post apocalyptic story out there.

This reminded me how much I love this game. The writing in it is top notch.

I would love a dlc that lets you play as a, soldier during operation enduring victory defending the alfas bunker, like the logs you find of the soldier making their last stand agains the horus class, amazing video love from ecuador.

Watching this for the fifth time now and just wanted to say "Comfort rolls of toilet paper and security bags of gasoline" made me lol so hard. I love how you manage to be snarky and sarcastic about the corporations at just the right moment that I always fits so well. Great job with that.

As I was playing the game and finding all of this out, it was so heartbreaking! 😭 Hearing in this story format summarized breaks my heart again. One of the best gaming stories out there imo!

This story is fed to you in pieces in the game and you just did SUCH an amazing job telling this story. Well done!

This is one of the absolute best stories in Sci-Fi, let alone Sci-Fi gaming.

Such a well written story was deserving of this fantastic synopsis. You have done such an amazing job here. It has been, by far, the greatest HZD lore I have seen. Thank you for doing all the work that undoubtedly took place in order to make this video. On my way to part 2 right now!