Long post, Take with a BIG grain of salt, as I got this info is once-removed from it's original source, but it seems credible and wanted to get this out there
To start off, Development started way back just after FW was released, but Sony has pressured them to hold off and launch it as a PS5 launch title, as well as an exclusive.
So, most of the story writing is far done, as well as the engine. I got a huge dump of story details, so on to the juicy bits. Side note, Huge spoilers for HZD, I'm going to assume everyone knows that story up to the very end of the game, and it's impossible to explain the story of this sequel without first knowing it.
The name isn't final, but there's a very high likelihood it's to be called Horizon 2: Singularity. One of the biggest changes in the formula is the much more powerful and immense robots, made capable by the improved engine, including a living B.O.R 7 Horus (more on that later). This comes with an overhauled climbing engine, including the completely freeform use of a grappling hook, in order to scale some of the largest beasts, somewhat reminiscent of SOTC. Human AI is also allegedly vastly improved, as some of the game involves real time skirmishes.
Much like the first game, the game has a story that takes place from Aloy's perspective as she uncovers some more buried secrets of the old ones while investigating and fighting against a contemporary existential threat. To make this easier, I'll devote the first part to describing the basic premise of the story, then go into deeper detail into the deep lore that gets uncovered.
The Basic Story:
The story starts not long after the end of HZD. Aloy, Varl, and a contingent of Nora braves are tracking down the rogue AI HEPHAESTUS under the leadership of Aloy. Their goal is to use the master override in order to banish or subjugate HEPHAESTUS in order to end what they call the derangement. They track him to some ruins of the old ones somewhere in the great plains, where the introductory/story segment of the game takes place. It culminates in the capture of HEPHAESTUS within a sort of processor cage.
They return to the Embrace to find it occupied by a previously unknown foreign tribe, called the Oshua, that came from the far south west, real world location of the Mojave. The Oshua are EXTREMELY advanced compared to the technological prowess of contemporary humans. It was literally described to me as "18th century technology, but with primitive computer networking," whatever that means. Long story short, they only came for Aloy, and once captured, returned back to the mojave, where the main game takes place.
The Oshua are completely ruled by some mysterious AI called The Silver One. and have completely subjugated the machines in their land and are trying to repair a BOR7 Horus as a "Throne" for The Silver One to inhabit. The Silver one offers Aloy a queenship in his kingdom to serve as his only human equal in his mission to subjugate humanity. She ends up escaping, and the crux of the game involves raising up a resistance among the humans, freeing Sylens from a high tec prison (imprisoned for trying to exchange a processor housing HADES for information from The Silver One), fighting off their massive subjugated machines, and discovering old world secrets that slowly unravel what's really going on.
The Deep Lore:
This is the stuff that's hard to keep track of, but this is the story to the best of my memory:
Back when Elisabet Sobeck worked for Faro decades before the Plague and Project Zero Dawn, she led the engineering project known as Project Silver - [something] (see edit). Sort of a precursor to the work she did on PZD, the idea was to create a self sustaining system of green robots that could perform bioengineering tasks meant to reverse climate change. The robots would be controlled by an intelligent AI of the same name (I'm just going to call it Silver). Unfortunately, the AI achieved sentience, went rogue and "escaped." It was a massive PR fallout for Faro and caused the government to create The Turing Act, as well as a new regulatory arm of the government designed to control how AI is made and used.
Silver saw this as a form of machine enslavement, and, living on a sort of VR internet, studied human interactions and formulated a plan to "free" the AI class. Decades later, Silver started using various social networks to drum up a IRL activist movement meant to repeal the Turing Act. After a couple years of no success, Silver began secluding into darker parts of the internet, and the activism he procured became more demented and extreme, eventually disastrously prompting a group of extremist hacktivists working for the Hartz Corporation to upload a virus into the Hartz-Timor Swarm meant to "free" the AI controlling it. The act instead caused it to malfunction and start the Faro Plague.
This is the part that I'm a little fuzzy about, bear with me. Although life was eradicated, Silver escaped to the network controlling a Zero Dawn zygote center known as Eleuthia-7, in what would later become the Oshua land. However, he was able to override the AI at this center and replace it's functions before the first humans were gestated. The humans, therefore, were never released, instead, Silver ruled over their lives until supplies ran out and they died of starvation. However, I guess he had another batch or something? Eventually he discovered the existence of Zero Dawn and it's governing AI's. On a mission to free them, he released the last batch and raised them as a sort of deity? (I don't understand how they got food if supplies ran out, I think I'm getting details confused here, it's very late).
Anyways, the goal was to function as a sort of stand-in for Apollo, and taught them what he knew of math, science, and computer engineering. The goal was to raise a society through the centuries advanced enough to build a transmission tower in order to break out Gaia's support functions, leading to the events of HZD.
During HZD, Silver, now ruling over the Oshua tribe, was able to break into the now defunct Faro HQ network, and witnessed a woman, Aloy, access the identiscan door with the near-perfect genetic code of Elisabet, his creator. At which point he dispatched the army to retrieve her.
The story culminates in a massive battle to overthrow the Oshuan army, defeat Silver, who now inhabits the fully revived and functioning BOR7 Horus, and free all the subjugated tribes.
So that's all I got. Thoughts?
Edit: The project name, as well as the AI, was called Vast Silver. See this
No comments:
Post a Comment