Every time I boot up a Horizon game I think “nah, I won’t feel the existential pressure of this perfectly executed post-apocalypse this time. It’s fine!”
And then I see something like plainsong; a city built out of a satellite dish array that actually exists in New Mexico
And then I see a city built around a crumbling heliostat plant identical to the one in Nevada
And then the game tells me to go to the ruins of old Las Vegas
Post-Horizon Forbidden West, ~5K words, rated M, complete
“Had enough?” Yarra asks. The question throbs out low and coarse and thick, and curls to match the corners of her mouth.
Aloy’s eyes go from glassy to sharp. They flash green-gold in the wavering ruddy glow—determined, defiant, and a shade of dismantled that makes Yarra shimmer like the dunes under brutal desert sunlight.
And she says, “Hah. No. Not yet.”
Hekarro's Champion faces the Commander of the Desert Clan in a traditional battle of endurance.