Horizon Zero Dawn Doesn’t Critique Humanity’s Greed or Arrogance. It Celebrates Them.
Caution: This article contains several spoilers for the game Horizon Zero Dawn
As a devout nihilist and absurdist, I love a good post-apocalyptic story. Anytime I feel my life start to develop some sense of meaning, I look for a fictional group of scrappy individuals trying to survive in a world where showers and drive-throughs are whispers of the past. Those who share my penchant for having existential mud thrown in their face know that any good post-apocalyptic story must include three elements: a disaster, survivors, and a moral. We have seen the first element manifested in several ways, including: superstorms, diseases, zombies, aliens, asteroids, and many more. There seems to be no shortage of ways that the descendants of pond scum thriving on this blue marble can be eradicated. The second element, the survivors, tend to follow a more consistent theme — the world divided into two groups, one who wants to retain some semblance of humanity and the other who seems to thrive in the new state of nature, acting on the animalistic instincts that they were forced to suppress when the social contract held strong. As interesting as these two elements are in themselves, they are even more so because they force us to consider the third element. In other words, they make us think about our morals now and to what extent they would hold up while fighting meteors, zombies, robots, and other humans.
One of my favorite renditions of societal collapse is Horizon Zero Dawn. In this game players take on the role of Aloy, a young outcast with mysterious origins who eventually becomes part of the Nora clan; not only does she become part of the Nora clan, but gains the status of Seeker, or “a worthy brave sent forth to accomplish a great purpose” (their words, not mine). With this new title, Aloy gains acceptance into the tribe and is given the rare opportunity to explore beyond its borders. As she explores, Aloy learns the truth — her world is a result of technological advancements gone wrong.
Almost a thousand years prior to the events covered in Horizon Zero Dawn a robotics genius named Ted Faro developed peacekeeping robots (they’re brutal killing machines) that can self-replicate and survive by consuming biomass. These robots are meant to serve humans during military campaigns; however, in a sudden twist that shocks anybody who hasn’t seen “The Twilight Zone,” “Outer Limits,” “Westworld,” “Blade Runner,” “Battlestar Galactica,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “The Terminator,” “The Matrix,” “A.I Artificial Intelligence,” “I, Robot,” “Ex Machina,” “Oblivion” or “Black Mirror,” the robots eventually go rogue, ignoring the commands of their human overlords, replicating exponentially and consuming biomass at a rate that will soon destroy all life on Earth. Attempts to eradicate the machines through military action are unsuccessful, but this does not mean that all hope is lost. Elisabet Sobeck, another robotics genius who once worked with Faro, comes up with Project Zero Dawn, a project that will allow life to flourish on Earth once again, albeit long after the swarm finishes destroying the planet. One key element of this project is the use of automated supercomputers that help to recreate life on Earth with the assistance of robotic, dinosaur-like entities who become the (supposedly) dominant species in Aloy’s time.
The posthumanist influence in Horizon Zero Dawn is quite clear. Posthumanism is a philosophical approach that minimizes the importance of human beings and elevates that of other, non-human creatures. Just like Copernicus and Galileo challenged the notion that the Earth was the physical center of the universe, posthumanists challenge the notion that human beings are the existential center of the universe. The regression of human society into one reminiscent of the Iron Age along with the advancement of robotic creatures demonstrates a world where humans are no longer apex predators, a point further expounded when Rost, the father-figure of protagonist Aloy, says “[i]t is one thing to hunt a beast, another to hunt a machine. You must be humble and respect their power.” With this quote, a call for humility is presented mere minutes into the game. Thus, the moral of Horizon Zero Dawn is to recognize that humans should control their hubris before it is too late, thus checking themselves before wrecking themselves, as the youth say.
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In addition to a call for humility, Horizon Zero Dawn also (seemingly) conveys a strong message against unfettered capitalism. Capitalism, by its nature, is a human-centric ideology. Humans seem to be the only ones who practice it, and capitalism is at its strongest when concerns for the environment, non-human animals, and orphans are at their weakest. Thus, it makes sense that a video game taking a posthumanist perspective would also have to address the issues with rampant capitalism. This is done as Aloy slowly uncovers the origins of Project Zero Dawn. Ted Faro’s company, Faro Automated Solutions, had already become the world’s richest when he decided that wasn’t enough. Rather than go to therapy and learn how to be satisfied with his vast wealth, Faro decided to shift his focus to military technology, which he (correctly) believed would make him even richer. He created combat robots that could self-replicate and survive off of biomass when other fuel sources were not readily available. This, of course, seems like a good idea at first, but as the peerless Jeff Goldblum so eloquently states, life, uh, finds a way, and these robots suddenly stop listening to their human overlords. Instead, like a bunch of metallic langoliers, they start to consume everything in their path. The only way to make the metaphor clearer here would be to place top hats and monocles on the combat robots. Luckily, Horizon Zero Dawn is a work of fiction and no such individuals currently exist, but the moral of the story is that eventually greedy, vile, pathetic, disgusting, psychopathic businesspersons will eat up all the Earth’s resources and leave it destitute in the pursuit of money and childhood acceptance if we don’t do something about it now.
It is easy to point out that all these lessons are coming from a game within an industry making billions of dollars a year, yet one can retort by stating that sometimes you must work within the system to challenge it. However, as video game scholar Andrei Nae, Ph.D., of the University of Bucharest points out, Horizon Zero Dawn doesn’t only condone capitalism externally — internal elements of the game, most notably its gameplay, also seem to overlook and even support the very capitalist elements it initially condemns. Players in Horizon Zero Dawn must hunt robots to accumulate resources and capital. The most basic of these resources are metal shards, which operate as a form of currency throughout the game. Shards are collected from dead robots. Scavenging robots that have already died is possible, but it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to gain enough shards to complete the game only through scavenging, so players are essentially forced to hunt them.
Thus, while the player is uncovering the origins of the Aloy’s world, they are themselves engaged in the very capitalism being derided in the story. The player becomes so engrossed in the message that they fail to see that they are operating within a capitalist system, hunting robots to accumulate resources, which are then used to purchase bigger and better weapons, which are then used to hunt bigger robots, etc. In his 2020 article “Beyond Cultural Identity. A Critique of Horizon Zero Dawn as an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Simulator,” Nae argues that this is not by accident; instead, “[t]he fact that the game openly assumes an anti-capitalist message paradoxically contributes to the naturalisation of capitalism as players are constantly reassured that they are not playing a capitalist game.” For Nae, the post-capitalist elements in the game are a ruse, meant to distract from the underlying message that capitalism is, so to speak, here to stay.
The same elements that Nae discusses in regards to capitalism and Horizon Zero Dawn above also reveal issues with its assumed posthumanist influence. As mentioned above, the player must hunt robots to advance in the game. While some of these robots have been corrupted by an evil artificial intelligence named Hades and should be destroyed to end their suffering (think Old Yeller), most of these robots are simply living their lives in the idyllic countryside, peacefully grazing moments before Aloy attacks them in hopes of gaining access to their delicious metallic innards (think Bambi). As such, robots are not viewed as superiors or even equals in the game. The only sense of respect given to them, really, is the idea that they can kill you, so you better be careful. However, other than that, they are simply viewed as walking ATMs, available to destroy and dismantle when some quick cash is needed. The humanist ideology here is very clear; robots, despite possibly being sentient, are important only insofar as they help humans.
The player is led to believe that robots are the dominant species in the game, but it quickly becomes clear this is only meant in terms of brute physical force; they are given little moral consideration and are still considered nothing but a resource. Thus, human-centric needs and wants continue to be given primacy in this seemingly posthuman world.
Even if there is any doubt about the sentience of robots in Horizon Zero Dawn, the sentience of non-human animals is well-established, yet animals are given even less moral consideration in the game. While at least some narrative is dedicated to discussing ‘respect’ for robots, this is not the case for animals. To upgrade equipment or create health potions, the player must hunt animals in hopes that the needed parts can be harvested from the corpse. Which parts are available from a hunted animal is randomized, with meat being the most common to come by, skin and bones being more difficult to find, and animal talismans being the rarest. If a certain upgrade requires a specific resource from an animal, e.g., the three bighorn sheep hide and one salmon bone needed (along with 100 metal shards) to upgrade one’s hunter arrow pouch to level three, one must continually hunt these animals until they drop these specific resources. This can take quite a few tries, especially as the resource becomes rarer, resulting in the killing and discarding of several animals until one of them finally drops the item needed. I, personally, must be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of animals in the game, many which were quite adorable. These animals are given no moral consideration; like the robots discussed in the previous paragraph, they are simply there to elevate Aloy’s abilities and equipment. Once again, this aspect of gameplay demonstrates that everything in the game is important only insofar as it contributes to human wants and needs, thus reinforcing anthropocentrism, i.e., the idea that humans alone are important and worthy of consideration while everything else is simply here to serve them.
In his 1981 book “Simulacra and Simulation,” philosopher Jean Baudrillard states that “[e]verything is metamorphosed into its opposite to perpetuate itself in its expurgated form. All the powers, all the institutions speak of themselves through denial, in order to attempt, by simulating death, to escape their real death throes.” In other words, when you buy a ‘Down with Capitalism’ sticker from some major retail store with money, a.k.a. capital, you are not downing capitalism at all, but instead upping it, and the sellers of that sticker recognize this while hoping you don’t. Thus, the moral of the story here (in this article) is that the moral of the story there (in Horizon Zero Dawn) may not be the moral you think it is. Luckily, as a nihilist I realize that none of this matters and will continue to pay good money to kill digital striders and grazers ’til the broadheads come home.
