Zero Dawn, Forbidden West's Villains Present Horizon 3's…

This article contains spoilers for Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West.

Throughout Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, players have encountered a wide variety of antagonists threatening the relatively peaceful balance between human tribes and animalistic machines in the post-apocalyptic United States. In Horizon Zero Dawn, Aloy encounters the cruel Helis, leader of the warmongering Eclipse cult, as well as the rogue artificial intelligence HADES, while Horizon Forbidden West introduces the Far Zenith, including the deceptive Tilda van der Meer, and rebel Tenakth Regalla. While Zero Dawn's villains were primarily depicted as pure evil, Forbidden West’s villains were painted more in shades of gray. With the Far Zenith AI Nemesis slated to be the next major antagonist for Horizon 3, Guerrilla Games has a choice to either depict Nemesis as wholly evil or as a redeemable foe.

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By LB Beistad

Horizon’s Nemesis AI Explained

When Aloy first encounters the alien Far Zenith in Horizon Forbidden West, their cause for returning to Earth 1,000 years after the planet’s near destruction by the Faro Plague was unknown. However, with help from fellow Elisabet Sobeck clone Beta, Aloy eventually comes to the conclusion that the Far Zenith must have activated HADES in order to wipe out all life and later reproduce life to their own agenda. Most of Forbidden West’s events are then centered around Aloy recovering scattered Project Zero Dawn subordinate AI to rejoin them with GAIA to help heal the world while preventing the Far Zenith from recovering the rogue AI.

Eventually, a member of the Far Zenith called Tilda van der Meer defected to Aloy’s side to help thwart the alien’s recollection of the rogue AI and subsequent destruction of Earth. However, while Tilda did aid Aloy in defeating the Far Zenith and their leader Gerard Bieri, she later revealed the Far Zenith’s true purpose for traveling to Earth. When the Far Zenith initially colonized the faraway planet Sirius, their society became a technological utopia until one day they developed an AI built on the copied consciousnesses of every Far Zenith member to achieve “digital transcendence.” Regulated as a failed experiment, Nemesis was vaulted away until it developed sentience and destroyed the Sirius colony.

How Nemesis Shaped the Horizon Games

After constructing an army of machines, Nemesis followed the surviving Far Zenith to Earth, intent on wiping out all remnants and surviving members of the Far Zenith. However, the Far Zenith survivors were a great deal ahead of Nemesis, forcing the AI to send an Extinction Signal to GAIA Prime and causing all subfunction AI to gain sentience and go rogue.

Nemesis intended for HADES to wipe out all life on the planet in Horizon Zero Dawn to make Earth uninhabitable for the Far Zenith runaways. Despite Aloy and her allies later eliminating all surviving Far Zenith in Forbidden West and its Burning Shores DLC, Nemesis is still en route to Earth, presumably still planning on destroying all organic life on the planet.

The Potential Characterization of Nemesis in Horizon 3

While there’s still little known about Nemesis’ full abilities and personality, Nemesis is expected to be an antagonist unlike any other seen in the Horizon series so far. It may be an AI, but it’s an AI more advanced than any developed on Earth, built from the emotions, memories, and prejudices of some of the most intelligent minds of the 21st century. Based on the emotions and prejudices as well as the actions of Far Zenith in Forbidden West, Nemesis may be just as vile, if not more so, than its human creators. If this turns out to be true, Nemesis will likely show no mercy for any life but may deceive some humans to help it destroy life, similar to how HADES deceived the Eclipse.

Alternatively, upon hearing of the Far Zenith’s deaths in Horizon Forbidden West, Nemesis may be hesitant to wipe out humanity on Earth until it properly analyzes the population to see if it will end up like its creators. This could give Aloy time to find a way to eliminate Nemesis or give both Aloy and Beta an opportunity to convince Nemesis to abandon his quest for death. Beta could especially relate to Nemesis as both are abused creations of the Far Zenith. After finding friendship with Aloy and her allies, Beta could convince Nemesis to see the good of humanity and lead it to help struggling tribes as well as find companionship, or at least go back to Sirius to live a life of peaceful isolation.

Similar to the Project Zero Dawn artificial intelligences, Nemesis appears to be named after a Greek deity, specifically the Greek Goddess Nemesis of Retribution.

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