During a relatively lengthy hiatus from Horizon Zero Dawn, an article in my Google feed caught my attention, promising to explain how to get the best armor and weapons in the game. I’d been wanting to get back into Horizon for some time and figured a little guidance on how to become better equipped to handle the game’s considerable difficulty might help. I jumped back into Horizon Zero Dawn literally on a mission: I wanted to track down this armor and to do so, I would need to progress further in the story. This was the enticement I needed to finally work through the process of familiarizing myself with the game’s systems and combat that had befuddled me before, and to finally knock this title off my ever-growing backlog.
Headlong, I dove into tracking down the Ancient Armory to kick off the quest to unearth its pre-apocalyptic technological secrets. It was now time to go spelunking into bunkers throughout the world to collect the power cells I’d need to unlock the best gear in the game. I had a lot of ground to cover before I could even unlock several of the locations I’d need to raid. I also needed to do a bit of backtracking to locate one of the power cells I’d apparently overlooked during my first pass through one of the locations early in the game.
I pushed forward through the main story missions, veering slightly off-path in major locations to pick up additional power cells. As soon as I’d collected all of them, I headed back to the Ancient Armory to unlock the Shield-Weaver outfit, and oh man, was it worth it. The game became admittedly easier with this armor equipped, but more so it became less annoying and more manageable with this outfit’s generous-but-not-overpowered damage and elemental resistance perks. Kirk Hamilton at Kotaku did a write-up on how the outfit makes the game more fun, here, and I couldn’t agree more. As I continued through the game’s final story missions, I was so glad I had tracked it down. And well beyond the final boss encounter, the outfit has proved invaluable in my continued enjoyment of the game, as I’ve gone back to complete the bulk of side quests and optional open world content with the Shield-Weaver outfit equipped. I still die from time to time, but overall, spend much less time annoyingly reloading saves and scouring the map for healing herbs.
As I noted in an earlier post, sometimes a bit of guided help uncovering a game’s secrets can enhance the experience beyond imagining, which was definitely the case here. But also, sometimes the best gear doesn’t account for all design elements within a game and I encountered a couple minor oddities in Horizon Zero Dawn when trekking back through a series of side quests and errands, one specifically related to obtainment of the Shield-Weaver armor. My initial online searching yielded no results of others requesting help with the issue, so I thought I’d lay it out here.
After completing the game, one of the abandoned side quests I activated to re-visit was the Healer’s Oath Quest. On my way toward the Shadow Carja Capital, Sunfall, during my initial play-through, a green exclamation point signifying a quest-giver caught my attention. Abas needed a healer to tend to his ailing little sister but he was a poor refuge and could not afford the aid of the local healer; could Aloy help? “No,” I thought. The main story was becoming evermore interesting and I really had to save this type of meddling for a later time. I had activated the quest, so it was there whenever I got around to it, if ever. Surely, Abas’ little sister would be fine.
Later, I happened upon the settlement, Blazon Arch, when roaming the Lake Powell region of the map, and there I met the healer, Ghaliv. Aloy attempted to enlist his help to come to the aid of Abas’ little sister outside Sunfall, but you see, this was his day of rest and he simply had no desire to help if not personally profitable. “You’re kind of an ass,” Aloy let him know. He decided he could reconsider, that his “charity” could be bought with nothing more than the heart of a Thunderjaw. As it happened, with the Shield-Weaver armor equipped, it wasn’t an impossible feat to tackle this T-Rex-like machine— one of the hardest of the game— and I already had one on hand. A deal was struck.
I reactivated the Healer’s Oath quest, fast-traveled to a point-of-interest along the way to collect a nearby metal flower and Anuk Animal Figurine, and continued due North toward the tent settlement outside Sunfall to talk to Abas. Several times as I drew nearer, Aloy spoke aloud to herself, mentioning that she would need to don “that disguise” as she was entering Shadow Carja territory; she soon mentioned it by name— Shadow Stalwart Outfit. I thought of The Witcher III, in which masks and other special quest items needed to be manually equipped from your inventory, but I checked my Outfits section and didn’t see it there. I ignored her persistent warnings and eventually came to an impassable, invisible wall. An on-screen message notified me of the necessity of equipping the Shadow Stalwart outfit to progress into this area. I was within one hundred yards or so of my target, Abas’ sister who desperately needed the healer’s help, afterall, but could not get to her. What to do?
Then it hit me, “SHIT.” After obtaining the Shield-Weaver outfit and in need of metal shards (the game’s currency), I’d sold off ALL unnecessary outfits in my inventory. With the perks I’d receive from the game’s best outfit, why in the world would I expect I’d need to hold onto a random, mildly-beneficial outfit? Further, why would the game have allowed me to sell an outfit or item that was necessary to access a location or region within its open world!? Player Choice, I suppose.
I quickly searched online hoping I could still have a chance to re-obtain the outfit and complete the quest at Sunfall. I read that it was given to Aloy initially by Sylens, during the main story mission preceding travel to the Shadow Carja Capital. For a moment I felt a sense of dread. “Please don’t tell me I’m locked out of this area altogether now,” I thought. I typed in various keyword combinations, hoping someone before me had encountered the same issue and posted to a message board somewhere, or Reddit, for help, but found only mention of how to obtain it in the first place, for the purpose of progressing the main story. I panicked; I guessed a Merchant, or Merchants, within the game might have the outfit for sale, but there were so many, and their inventory varied all over. Finally, I found mention of the Shadow Stalwart outfit and where to obtain Medium and Heavy versions of it in Meridian. It could be purchased from the Hunting Goods Merchant there. Whew! I fast-traveled to Meridian and ran to my now-favorite Merchant of all. He had the goods, and I needed to track down some additional machine parts in order to trade for them. Ugh.
After hunting down the required parts and returning to Meridian to purchase the outfit I’d long ago owned, I could finally get back to Sunfall and get Abas’ sister the help she needed for a cool 5,500 XP.
Overall, my experience with Horizon Zero Dawn has been awesome. Aside from the aforementioned outfit debacle, though, one other thing continues to irk me. This is a bit pet peevish, and admittedly not hugely consequential, but worth noting.
Throughout the game, some Merchants offer Special Items’ location maps for sale. Without having realized it, I’d grabbed three copies of each map from different vendors throughout the world. Once I’d realized it, I found I couldn’t sell these extra, unnecessary copies to Merchants, and was struck that the game would allow me to uselessly re-purchase something I didn’t need and had no means of getting rid of. But hey, in the grand scheme of everything, a minor issue.
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