HORIZON ZERO DAWN GUIDE

Horizon Zero Dawn does a fantastic job of facilitating your big adventure, but it's still easy to get
distracted in the blizzard of side quests and shiny objects that fill its post-world. apocalyptic. You'll
eventually sort through your ever-expanding to-do list and get much better at inventory
management, but we're here to help you through the first few hours to get you there faster.

WHAT'S ALL THAT ON MY HUD?

Everything about your HUD in Horizon Zero Dawn will look familiar if you've played another action
RPG, but there's a lot of information presented here, so let's break it down.

1. Health and medicine bag. In the top left corner, you'll see your health bar and medicine bag,
with your current health status in red and the amount of your medicine bag below in green. This
mechanic takes a second to understand: you can refill your health from your medicine bag and
refill your medicine bag by collecting medicinal plants. There are potions that will replenish your
health, but only foraging plants will refill your medicine bag.

2. Current search. If you have an active quest (or side quest or errand or job or... aspect: there's a
lot to do in Horizon Zero Dawn), information will appear here about that quest, the next step(s),
and its current status.

3. Compass. It's mostly just a compass, but you'll also see icons for nearby points of interest.

4. Stealth icon. It's pretty simple: an open eye means you're visible, and a closed eye means you're
hidden. The parentheses around the eye indicate how much noise you are making. If you played a
Skyrim, you already know how this works.

5. Level and XP. The gauge fills as you gain experience until you level up.

6. Search waypoint. If you have an active mission, you'll see an icon indicating where you need to
go next.

7. Resources. There are things to pick up in Horizon Zero Dawn everywhere. The things you can
pick up will be marked with their own icons: different types of materials have different icons, and
the color of the icon indicates the rarity of the material. The icon will turn red if you are out of
space in your inventory for that type of material.

8. Resource history. Above your item shortcuts at the bottom left, there's a history of what you've
recently picked up. You can usually ignore it, but it's nice to have because you'll constantly be
picking things up and stop paying attention. This is a good reminder.

9. Element shortcuts. The item shortcuts in the bottom left corner work a little differently than
you're probably used to. Up on the D-pad you will always use your medicine bag. Left and right
cycle through your other items, things like potions and traps. Pressing down will use whatever is in
the middle at that moment.

10. Weapon. Across the screen at the bottom right is your currently equipped weapon and the
amount of ammo you have for it.
 HOW DO I LEVEL UP?

Horizon Zero Dawn has many of the same features as any other RPG: experience points, damage
types, skill trees, etc., but the vast majority of RPG paperwork takes place behind the scenes. You
earn XP by completing quests (and side quests and errands and hunting field trials, and so on) and
hunting (both animals and machines), then that XP is converted into levels.

That being said, the short answer to "How do I level up in Horizon Zero Dawn?" It's "Don't worry."

When you reach the required XP, your level goes up, your maximum HP increases, and you
automatically gain a skill point. The only thing you have to worry about is spending your skill points.
 WHAT SKILLS SHOULD I BUY FIRST?

There are three skill categories in Horizon Zero Dawn: Marauder, Brave, and Forager. In general,
prowler skills tend to be sneaky, brave skills focus on hitting things with other things, and search
skills focus on finding things.

There is nothing mutually exclusive about these categories, and there are useful (and important)
skills in each. And that's a problem. When you want every skill, it's hard to decide where to start,
but that's what we're here for. Here's how to spend your first seven points.

• Healer - row 1, column 8, 1 point. This ability speeds up the transfer of hit points from your
medicine bag to your health bar. We're a little lukewarm on the usefulness of this
particular skill on its own, but it's a requirement to unlock what is arguably the most
valuable skill in the game, Herbalist.
• Herbalist - row 2, column 8, 2 points. After purchasing the healer skill above, your next goal
should be to double the capacity of your medicine bag. It will take two levels of XP to have
the points to spend, but it's worth every minute. Sure, there are health potions, but they're
not as effective as your medicine bag. Your main source of healing is going to be your
medicine bag and expanding it makes it even better.
• Silent hit: row 1, column 1, 1 point. This allows you to attack from cover with a very strong
attack that does not expose you. (More specifically, it allows you to attack an enemy who
doesn't see you, allowing you to sneak up and stab them if you're careful.) You will use it
constantly, regardless of how stealthily you play. Silent attacks take out low-level enemies
with a single hit and deal heavy damage to everything else.

• Concentration - row 1, column 4, 1 point. Throughout Horizon Zero Dawn, you'll try to
shoot accurately with your bow at small, distant, and moving targets. Concentration gives
you a few valuable seconds of bullet time.
• Critical Hit: Row 1, Column 5, 1 point. When an enemy, whether human or machine, falls,
 this ability allows you to get close to your spear to deal extra damage. There are many
cases where this ability is useful: you knock down enemies when you deal a lot of damage,
you tie them up with your rope launcher, you hit them with enough shock ammo or with
the knockdown ability (row 3, column 6).
• Decoy call - row 1, column 7, 1 point. There are two reasons why this skill receives our
recommendation. Firstly, being able to catch the attention of a target in a group will always
improve your chances of success, especially if you are hidden when calling and combine
the decoy with the silent attack. Secondly, this is the first step down a branch of the skill
tree that improves your nullifying ability, something you'll use extensively in the mid-game.