Why Horizon 3's Flashpoints Might Be More Important Than…

As an action role-playing franchise, the Horizon series is filled with a variety of gameplay options across its five games. The most common form of gameplay in Horizon is its direct and stealth combat against post-apocalyptic, animalistic machines, as well as hostile tribal warriors and cultists.

Players can additionally participate in several other gameplay sequences, such as puzzle solving, scanning machines and ruins with the Focus, and climbing precarious pathways along cliffs and mountainsides. However, one gameplay feature of both Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West could become more important and dynamic than ever before in Horizon 3: flashpoint dialogue options.

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By Josh Cotts

Horizon’s Flashpoint Mechanic Explained

In Horizon Zero Dawn, Aloy can often ask select NPCs optional questions to expand upon certain elements of the world, other characters, and to ask their opinion on previous events. These dialogue options don’t appear too often in-game and will occasionally disappear forever, especially with NPCs on main quests.

While these dialogue options won’t change Aloy’s relationship with characters, as they’re primarily designed just to delve deeper into tribal lore, flashpoint dialogue options do function more akin to common dialogue options seen in other popular RPGs such as Fallout and Mass Effect. Similar to common dialogue options, flashpoints are rare dialogue and occasional action options that allow players to make Aloy respond in three ways, represented by a heart, brain, and fist icon.

The heart flashpoint option will have Aloy respond compassionately, the brain flashpoint option will have Aloy respond in a more logical or insightful way, and the fist flashpoint option will have Aloy respond in a hostile, abrasive way. For example, in Horizon Forbidden West, Aloy is asked by Sun-King Avad if she’ll return to Meridian and spend time with him, potentially to the point of blossoming a romance between the two.

Here, Aloy can respond by either claiming she'd like to see Avad again but is uncertain of her future, that their potential romantic relationship is not important until the current threat is dealt with, or that Avad’s suggestions are nonsensical compared to the danger she’s heading to.

Horizon 3’s Potential Increased Importance in Horizon 3

While flashpoint options allow players to speak through Aloy expressively and make such choices based on their personal preferences rather than the scripted protagonist's, they rarely affect Horizon’s story in impactful or wide-reaching ways. For instance, no matter how Aloy responds to Avad’s proposal in Horizon Forbidden West, Avad and all of his Carja and Oseram subjects will still be supportive of Aloy and her endeavors.

A handful of flashpoints will only affect other characters’ immediate responses after players select the heart, brain, or fist option, and those choices will rarely impact other events or characters’ actions. The most notable way flashpoints directly impact an event is the choice to spare or kill the Tenakth rebel leader Regalla. If Aloy spares Regalla, she’ll join Aloy as a temporary companion before sacrificing herself in battle against Far Zenith Specters.

With Horizon 3 expected to end the main Horizon trilogy, Guerrilla Games could expand upon flashpoints to make them appear more often and have their choices better impact events and characters’ opinions towards Aloy. For instance, if Aloy does attempt to unite all of the known tribes against Nemesis in Horizon 3, she could make several flashpoint decisions that could impact how other tribes will take part in the fight against Nemesis. If Aloy makes more heart choices in support of the Carja, it could make some Tenakth or Utaru hesitant to join the fight, as they may assert that Aloy is prioritizing the Carja over all other tribes.

How Flashpoints Could Impact Horizon 3’s Ending

The Far Zenith AI Nemesis is said to have been the source of the Horizon franchise’s main issues, with Nemesis activating HADES in Zero Dawn and nearly wiping out the Far Zenith, leading to their invasion of Earth in Forbidden West. Due to this threat, Guerrilla could use the flashpoint mechanic to make more dynamic life-or-death decisions, especially towards the end of Horizon 3.

If Aloy acts with a fist perspective towards her companions, this could result in several characters' deaths, while making more heart choices could hypothetically result in more characters surviving. A flashpoint could even be used to make three different endings for Horizon 3, with one potentially convincing Nemesis to help humanity, another banishing Nemesis back to Sirius, or another simply resulting in Nemesis' destruction. So long as Horizon 3 actually doubles down on this feature, the possibilities could be virtually limitless.

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