Horizon 3's Cauldrons Could Take a Page From Tears of the…

Despite being rival exclusive PlayStation and Nintendo franchises, Horizon and modern Legend of Zelda titles share many characteristics with one another. For one, both Horizon and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are open-world games centered around their protagonists exploring and fighting rogue machines. Each major Horizon release additionally debuted the same year as Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, with Zero Dawn releasing in 2017 and Forbidden West releasing in 2023. While the two franchises are similar, Guerrilla Games can still take inspiration from Tears of the Kingdom’s Shrines of Light to expand Horizon 3’s Cauldrons.

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By Josh Cotts

Shrines of Light and Cauldrons Explained

In Legend of the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Link will encounter several dungeons in caves and open landscapes called Shrines of Light. While a few Shrines are set up as tutorials for archery, shields, and other combat mechanics, most of them will challenge players’ minds with complex puzzles, such as the Gikaku Shrine requiring Link to catapult to multiple sky islands to retrieve a green crystal.

Each shrine additionally holds several chests that feature rare or useful loot such as diamonds, bombs, and armor like the Zonaite Shin Guards. If players manage to complete all 152 Shrines of Light in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, they’ll be rewarded with the Ancient Hero’s Aspect armor at the Temple of Time.

In Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West, and LEGO Horizon Adventures, Aloy can encounter several underground Project Zero Dawn facilities known as Cauldrons. These labyrinths were overseen by the AI subfunction HEPHAESTUS and designed to build and repair the many animalistic machines that roam Horizon’s post-apocalyptic landscapes. In each Horizon game, Aloy can travel through Cauldrons, solving brief puzzles and defeating small machines, until she comes upon a Cauldron core, which is typically protected by a massive machine serving as a mini-boss.

Once the machine is defeated, Aloy can override the Cauldrons’ cores and gain the ability to override other machine types to aid her in battle or traversal. Compared to Zelda's Shrines, Cauldrons are far less numerous, with the Horizon series only featuring 12 Cauldrons, including:

Cauldron SIGMA
Cauldron RHO
Cauldron XI
Cauldron ZETA
Cauldron EPSILON
Repair-Bay TAU
Cauldron GEMINI
Cauldron MU
Cauldron IOTA
Cauldron KAPPA
Cauldron CHI
Cauldron THETA

Horizon 3’s Potential Shrine-inspired Cauldrons

Unlike Cauldrons, Shrines in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are far less uniform and consistent with one another, with some being able to be completed in mere minutes while others require far more time to finish. Cauldrons, meanwhile, are fairly similar to each other across the whole Horizon franchise. While Horizon Forbidden West improved upon Zero Dawn’s Cauldrons by featuring more complex puzzles and fear-inducing boss fights, particularly with Cauldron KAPPA’s water-centric Apex Tideripper boss fight, most Cauldrons still felt too similar and offered little incentive for completion. Aside from accessing other machines’ overrides, Cauldrons only rewarded Aloy with basic machine parts, some modifications, and Medicinal Grey Omen fungi.

Cauldrons are likely to return in the third Horizon game to allow Aloy to override the game’s expected new machine types, but Guerrilla Games could introduce several new, smaller but more varied Cauldrons based on Tears of the Kingdom’s Shrines. These smaller Cauldrons could be explained by having been created by HEPHAESTUS or Nemesis and feature more treacherous puzzles and encounters thanks to the use of Far Zenith technology. Instead of rewarding Aloy with basic loot, completing these new Cauldrons could reward players with rare armor and weapon variants. Completing all of these new Cauldrons could additionally allow Aloy to override Far Zenith-based machines as no Far Zenith machines in Horizon Forbidden West were overrideable. These rewards and challenges could better incentivize players to try out the new Cauldrons.

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