Horizon Zero Dawn

If you've read my Seeker74 guides on Trueachievements, you should be familiar with my style. If not, go check them out if you need help with Insanity for Mass Effect 2, 3 or Andromeda (I've also posted others, and you can find my complete list on the site). The first thing you need to consider is that you definitely want to do this on a New Game Plus with Frozen Wilds completed for the Banuk weapons. They usually do more damage than the Adept weapons that come with New Game Plus because of the charging up capability. Try to attack with a fully charged shot (the X crosshair) when you can. It's also a good idea to use the Shield Weaver armor (unless you really want to make this harder on yourself) from the power cell quest, even if you have Heavy armor with purple mods in the slots. Also, the autosaves can be a bit unpredictable so saving when you get to a campfire can save a headache (I'm speaking from experience here.)

My selected weapons are the three bows and the Tripcaster to begin, I may suggest swapping out a weapon from time to time. Here's just a quick reference of what you need for the most useful arrow types:
6 Precision Arrows: 10 Ridge Wood, 8 Metal Shards, 5 Wires
12 Fire Arrows: 2 Ridge Wood, 5 Metal Shards, 3 Blaze
6 Corruption Arrows: 10 Ridge Wood, 5 Metal Shards, 2 Metalburn
Tripcaster Ammo: All require 8 Metal Shards and 4 Wires. Shock needs 8 Sparkers and the Blast and Fire Wires need 5 and 4 Blaze respectively.
I don't recommend using the Sling, making multiple enemies mad at the same time is not recommended and it has short range.
Of the three speciality weapons (Icrerail, Stormslinger and Forgefire) that you get from the Banuk, only the Forgefire is really useful. I'll let you know the best times to use it. It uses a bit of Metalburn and a lot of Blaze for crafting ammo.

You should start with some unspent skill points due to losing access to some later skills. I'll mention levels for things, but that is just to keep things organized. Obviously, at level 60 plus, you can take on anything that you want to (the levels above that don't give you any more HP, you're stuck at 800). The first thing that you will notice is that many times weak point shots will only stun your enemy instead of outright killing it. Stealth still works well to keep you out of sight, and hitting an enemy and waiting for it to stand down from yellow status repeatedly is usually a good alternative to a battle.

The Sawtooth that you have to take down (now with no visual health bar, more damage equals more sparks) is best dealt with by setting a fire wire along its path and staying in cover while it wanders over to investigate. A silent strike will weaken it and you can melee it down while it is still disoriented.

There's a lot of distance to cover on foot as you go through the game, so it is wise to stay in stealth as much as you can as you make your way between campfires. You don't need to be attacked unnecessarily, so be aware of your surroundings. Don't be afraid to take down a bot who gets too close if you can do so without drawing attention to yourself and have a good chance at a one hit kill or at least to severely weaken it. Rolling into cover helps sometimes and taking the long way around a rock or something that breaks the view of a herd of bots is preferable to combat. Beware of campfires that are near bots, there are a few of those. I recommend still doing Bandit Camps, Tallnecks and Cauldrons because all of these things will help you in one way or another.

The next waypoint is near a campfire that you have been to, minimizing your walking. The Proving combat (even getting a trophy from the Grazers) can be a bit hectic. One hit will take your shields away, but they seem to regenerate pretty quick given the chance. There's plenty of cover, and the enemies that come to melee range don't gang up on you until near the end of the ambush sequence.

Don't feel the need to heal every time you get hit, it takes about the same amount of time to heal as it does for your shields to recharge. If your health is low after you are done with a batlte, you can heal then if you feel the need. If you're like me, you've got three bags full of herbs and full potions from the previous playthrough. Keep your herb bags full, but don't feel like you need to loot everything. Figure out which resources you need the most based on your playstyle.

Don't forget to get the power cell in the mountain before you leave. After you emerge from the mountain, loot all the plants that you see so that you will have good health recovery for the coming battle. Set some blast wires or other traps at the gate quickly, the battle begins swiftly on this difficulty. Select your fire arrows then roll and jump to keep your distance from the Corrupter's tail attacks and avoid the corruption projectiles. Try to concentrate on it, the braves will do a pretty good job of taking down the rest of the bots. The wooden cover in the area is soon destroyed, so it doesn't help you for long. This override attachment (PSI) allows you to override: Watchers, Striders, Tallnecks, Chargers and Redeye Watchers.

Be careful overriding the Strider, don't rush in right away. The herd will separate soon after you arrive and the ride to the next town is short if you press X a few times when your mount slows down. Once you get a new waypoint, get on your mount and try to follow the road. Nearly one thousand steps is better done mounted. About halfway there you will find a Tallneck, just be careful of the machines over in the ruins if you decide to go after it. In case you forgot how to get onto the Tallneck, climb the stairs and zipline to a spot near a rusty ramp that you can use. The stunning wave from overriding it can be useful if you didn't kill everything in the area. You will have picked up The War Chief's Trail (8/22) at this point, and since it is closer to your current location it's a good idea to make that one active. You'll be coming back this way soon, thankfully there's a campfire that will shorten the journey. Watch out for machines that may have repopulated the ruins when you come back.

In the upcoming battle, stay high up and do not zipline down into the camp. The enemies have a hard time hitting you up high and you can take them down pretty easily. Go around the edge and make sure that you get all the blaze canisters.

Go back to the ruin near your starting point (the only one on the map in the southern area) and get the other power cell. The Corrupted Zone in the south is level 15, but the nearby Bandit Camp is only level 7 and Nil is nearby to the Armory Bunker with his quest that leads to his of helping you if you talk to him when you get closer. I suggest paying a visit to the Bunker and slotting in the first two cells so you can access the room and get the supply chests, you might need the healing items and crafting supplies within. You'll want to pick up the rest of the power cells as you go to get access to the other room in here that has more supply crates.
You can avoid some walking toward the Bandit Camp by using the campfire near the ruins. You might see a party of four bandits near the camp as you approach. You definitely want to disable the alarms in these camps and the prisoners are good for helping you. It's easy to lose stealth here and be overwhelmed if you are not careful, so be careful. Don't forget to talk to Nil after you're done. I recommend working on A Seeker At The Gates (7/22) since it is closer. I suggest going to Cauldron Sigma first because overrides are a good thing. The mapped path takes you through the edge of a Corrupted Zone, but if you bear right after the bridge you can avoid hostiles for the moment. The Underequipped quest seems hard at first, but the hunting party will help a lot.

While your still near the Cauldron, go ahead and go after it. Just be careful how you take care of the Scrappers and Watchers in the area. The good news is that there are others in the area fighting too, the bad news is that there is not much in the way of red grass. If you get into a melee battle, Sylens' Lance does a pretty quick job on machines if you have some decent purple Spear Damage on it. You don't have to kill more than the ones that are keeping you away from the door. Inside, don't forget to use the triangular pipes to your advantage as you stealthily take down your enemies. Also, don't forget there are no save points in here so if you die you get to start over. Ride the box all the way to the end and take out the Watchers (more Watchers and a Shell Walker are optional, there is a ramp on the right before you get that far.) A bridge, a zipline, a climb, another bridge and some maneuvering gets you to the core. You might want to take down the patrolling Watchers from your high perch before you head down. Remember, the Fire Bellowback is weak against fire, so set a few fire wires and/or blast traps between it and whatever pillar you decide to override so it has to run through your traps to get to you, more machines come in through a sealed door. You'll still have a fight on your hands, try to target the chin bags and the big thing on its back while it breathes fire at you, when the big thing goes the machine often does too. You can now override: Grazers, Scrappers, Lancehorns and Sawtooths.

The sounds of battle are still there when you come out, so fast travel to the campfire nearby and continue the Underequipped quest. If you can break the Stalker's line of sight, you can get into some tall grass and avoid being hit for a few moments so it will go back to wandering. From this position, you can either take out the mine launchers with Hardpoint Arrows or wait for it to come into Silent Strike range to weaken it severely and take it down with melee.
There's a Corrupted Zone north of here, on the way to the next step in Revenge of the Nora (9/22), that you might want to tackle. It's level 18 with a Fire Bellowback and Chargers as the targets. Take it slowly. Chargers are tough melee targets, and they are fast, but you can take them down fast with a horn shot. You definitely need to target the weak points on all of them and the wall here helps the machines cool down from full yellow quite a bit before they can come around to look for you.

Back to your main quest, you'll get some help from braves as you go. I'll be taking them in numerical order and I'll provide anything that you need to know.
I. The sun will be rising as you attack this one. A couple of Corrupted Watchers and some bandits are on the edge of the camp as you approach. Missing the Silent Strike on the closest Watcher can really mess up your strategy, so be careful.
II. There are more Corrupted Watchers on the way to the second one. Thankfully, the campfire in the area is out of their sight. The direct path is blocked so you need to come around to the right. The cultists are rounded out by Scrappers and Glinthawks this time.
III. There are a couple of Corrupted Scrappers on the way to this one, be careful. Once you get there, the alarm is not too far from the edge of the camp so make that your priority. I did not run into any machines bigger than a Watcher.

Follow Varl and do as he says. Once the cutscene is over, do your best to stay stealthy as you get in range to target the blaze stockpile. The first place you should go is the tall grass to the left a little down from where you start. The Bellowback might see you and come investigate, so get as close to the fence while still remaining in the grass so it won't step on you when it comes over. You might want to take it down with weak point shots since it's acting like a watch dog. Do it slowly though, wait for it to walk as far away as possible, you don't need to raise the attention of the entire camp. If you mess up, run to the blaze and shoot it. The cutscene rescues you from a nasty death and allows you break line of sight of whatever enemies are left. Clear the survivors and you're done with this quest.

You have one more Corrupted Zone to clear before you can work on the other main quest, which one is up to you. The one nearest to Mother's Crown is closest to a campfire you should have visited. It consists of Grazers and not much cover, but a good hit to the things on the back will take one down fast.

Head north to Hunter's Gathering if you need to sell anything or want to save your game before you go wandering off into the misty part of the map. There are a lot of machines in 1000 steps between here and there, so be careful. The campfire nearby is surrounded by Lancehorns, you just need to hit their rear weak spots for easy take downs. Soon after, you'll run across a Sawtooth, but you can override it to get past. You'll need to decide if you want make your way through a Corrupted Zone of Watchers and Scrappers not too long after that. Alternately, you can go north to a campfire and save your game and then continue along that road. You can climb pretty high into the nearby mountains (resulting in a snowstorm) and take out the Scrappers easily enough by infecting two of the three with Corruption and being too high for the third one to hit you with its weapon. You can take a shortcut south from here to the Two Teeth Bandit Camp and liberate it for another campfire, I suggest you snipe from up here and then drop carefully to a wooden platform to take out the alarm nearby.

There's a campfire to the west, but you could not have reached that without going through the camp to get to it. When you get near the waypoint, you have to fight a Corruptor and a few machines, get into the grass as soon as you can. Silent Strike whatever comes near you and if the Corruptor notices you, run until it loses interest. Head back to the fortress and help them take it down, they're pretty effective. This completes the main quest and there are a few side quests in this town (Balahn offers one in fact) if you wish to pick any up. Another Tallneck and a Cauldron should now have popped up on your map. The Cauldron is closer, so I'll cover that next.

As you get closer, you see that it is Cauldron Rho. You should discover a campfire as you approach. It's a good idea to save before you head over to the entrance, even though there are only Watchers outside. You can't get in that way, so go find a place nearby where you can get down. There's a Watcher on the other side of the door that will notice you the moment you complete your override. The next door leads to two Watchers and a Ravager, the good news is that one of the vents has already been opened so you have a bit of cover right away. Take out the Watchers as soon as possible and then you can ride the ring and floating box across the room. You should be able to take the Ravager down pretty quick once you land if you take out its cannon right away. The next room you come to has a Watcher watching the room below and you can take it out with a not quite Silent Strike. Two below might come up to investigate. Once that is done, climb the wall instead of opening the door. This takes you to a perfect sniping position because the machines cannot retaliate as you taken them down, there are some Watchers, a Ravager and two Longlegs.

Once that room is clear, you are enemy free to the core where you'll meet the Snapmaw for the boss. Thankfully, the game saves as you enter this room. Once you override the forcefield, a Ravager joins the battle. So now you've got two machines with ranged attacks chasing you. The best way to take these guys down is rather cheesy, but it works. Set at least one Blast Wire at each of the shielded doors, the Ravager comes in one of them but I'm not sure which one. Set at least one wire at each of the breaks in the central forcefield wall and then set a few more at various places anchored on one side to the forcefield wall extending out into the room. Now you just need to lead your foes on a merry chase through all of your wires and shoot fire arrows at them when they stop for a moment from being damaged. You can now override: Longlegs, Shell Walkers, Snapmaws and Ravagers. Take out a few Watchers as you emerge before you extend the bridge, but be careful because some of them are Redeye.
Heading straight west toward the next Tallneck avoids a lot of enemies. You'll see it from a distance and, as you get closer, hopefully you'll see the Glinthawk flying around nearby before it sees you. It can see you climbing the Tallneck and knock you off, so it's a good idea to take it out. The other dangers are the many other machines in the area, because you have to get past a lot of Watchers to get on an island surrounded and populated by Snapmaws to climb the Tallneck. A fun thing is to try out your new override by getting the attention of a Snapmaw from stealth and then, once it's your friend, leading it to the island and then getting out of the way while it fights for you.

It's a long way to Meridian and the mapped route leads past a Bandit Camp. I suggest taking it out, if only for another place to save your game. Once again heading for Meridian, you will see something huge in the distance but your Focus won't identify it. Don't get too close, just go down the steep path nearby to the Shell Walker convoy area. Some people are fighting there so you can help them out and maybe get yourself a new friend with an override. Head for Meridian now. It's pretty far, though, so you will probably run into some trouble before you get there. There's a bridge with a couple Carja that are being attacked by Broadheads, you should help them out. This will put you on a non-hostile path to Meridian. This will advance The City of the Sun (10/22) and start The Field of the Fallen (11/22). Take heart, you're about halfway done with the storyline!

The map will now show the Tallneck and Cauldron in this area. The safe areas run for a while as you go south, but eventually it's back to hide-and-seek with the machines as you venture through the mist. When you see the glowing red things, give that Stalker territory a wide berth, the Sawtooth nearby is a lot easier to handle. You'll soon come to another Bandit Camp, but this one has bandits walking around before you get to the camp. Once that's done, deal with some Ravagers and Fire Bellowbacks as you make your way to the next Cauldron.
Cauldron Xi is the one that is part of an enemy stronghold. Carefully make your way inside and into the grass. Thankfully, these guys love stockpiling blaze as much as you love shooting it. The best place to go is over to the far right so you can climb up to the higher area and the bad guys are funneled up the ramps pretty much. Find the key and enter the door at the very top. There are cultists as you progress and not a lot of cover, other than objects to hide behind. When you reach the big room with the Tallneck head, the game will save. The upper area is great for sniping. Once you have the room clear, climb the ramp on the far side, looking out for more enemies that might not have come down. In the core area, set a few wires up because it's hard to remain unseen for long. The override of the Cauldron will get you attacked by both machines and people and you have to survive for 2 minutes. So before you trigger that, go grab the machine gun from the dead body and put it on the high platform that one of the ramps leads to. If you die, the weapon goes away, so try not to die. It only has 60 shots, and it goes fast. Things keep spawning until the time is up, so your best bet may be to go hide and let the battle rage and then see about the survivors before you look for the exit. You will definitely want to loot bodies for potions if you used a few, especially if you emptied your herb pouches. You're not out yet, apparently they broke the elevator so you need to get out past a bunch of Stalkers. Thankfully, they are not all in the same place at the same time. The trigger attack on Sylens Lance delivers a large shock, so if you find yourself toe to toe with one of these things, go for it since it is also the main weakness of this machine. Once they are all down and you have climbed the pillar, there is a battle going on in the hallway in front of you. Participate as you wish and then get out of here, where you find more enemies to fight. The Tallneck is not too far from here, you'll need to take out some Longlegs in the area. These are the first enemies you will find that can see you in stealth.

Scroll your map north and you should see a Tallneck in the mist where your two main quest goals are. Travel to the closest fire you have to that area and head on up. You'll need to go around a huge mountain to get to the Tallneck, so you'll probably end up running into Erend on the way. Go ahead and help him out with Into the Borderlands (12/22). When you get to the ruins, the people go down easily enough but the machines seem to be enhanced somehow, and they can see you in stealth. The first thing you should do is run away and get out of their sight. There's a big tree and some ruins you can hide in until they are out of yellow mode. At this point, they should both be targetting Erend. He does a good job of hitting them with freeze so that you can follow up with fire arrows. A little investigation completes his quest and now you can go the rest of the way to the Tallneck or look further north for another Cauldron.
I'm going after the Tallneck first. The most direct route requires following a mapped road between two mountains and through a Ravager herd. Searching the pile of junk in the area gains the attention of one of them, so you can override it and send it off against its friends. This should weaken the survivors for whatever strategy you have in mind. Shortly after, the most direct route takes you through a low area between two plateaus, Ravagers on the one side and Tramplers on the other. The Ravager side also has a campfire with pretty nice supply crates next to it. This is probaby a better option than the next campfire that has Longlegs around it. There's really no easy way to the Tallneck, it's a big desert area with several kinds of machines and a pretty good amount of tall grass. It's really just a matter of watching your surroundings and being careful from one tuft to the next. You'll definitely need to take out a few machines, there are really too many to avoid them all. That being said, the best way to avoid being absolutely torn apart by a dozen machines is to override a Ravager and let it cause some damage. Don't do this from the area nearest the area near the Tallneck, you really don't want to draw the attention of the Longlegs. After that, you can do the same a couple more times to finally get to a place where you can climb to the Tallneck. Now get yourself to the last Cauldron. We haven't fought the Thunderjaw in a tiny area yet, something to look forward to I guess.

Near the village on the north side of the river you will come across an area full of machines. They are unable to get up where you are if you stay on the cliffside, so be careful of any ranged attacks and take them down at your leisure. As you approach Cauldron Zeta, you'll notice the glowing objects that mean that a Stalker (three really) is nearby. Be careful, or better yet override one to help you with the other two. The route to the core is the easiest yet and there are two Watchers there to greet you. The promised Thunderjaw is there as well, patiently waiting to be let out. It's quite literally a one machine army and you can't really stand still for a moment because of the amount of attacks this thing can bring against you. Wires and traps will soften it up, but there is not much space in here to run from it and you just have to shoot it as you can until it's dead. If you absolutely cannot beat this thing, the designers were nice enough to put handholds on the walls to let you back out into the world the way you came in.

Once that's out of the way, you're done with overrides and should be able to override anything as long as you can sneak up on it. Head to the palace now for Into the Borderlands to advance that quest. Take a campfire to get closer a lot faster. On the way you might run across some warrior fighting Glinthawks, this will anger the Rockbreakers across the river in the Corrupted Zone. They can't cross the river, in fact they get stuck in the water and you can snipe them easily. Aim for the tail and let go before the weak point is right in front of your bow to hit it. The Trampler herd you may run across is pretty easy as well, just hit the big weak spot on the belly twice for a nice explosion and a guaranteed fire kill before it can ever get near you. Closer to Dervahl's Camp you'll find some Snapmaws and once you get there use the advice in the cutscene and free the captive machines. You don't need to free them all, in fact it's best to save the ones nearest the cellar for the heavy enemy that is about to emerge. Go down to make this quest complete. Now head back to Meridian for The Sun Shall Fall (13/22).
Most of this is running around, but I suggest after you take out the henchmen on the bridge that you equip the Forgefire. You will be facing a lot of Glinthawks in a short time. First, though, you need to take down more henchmen. The Forgefire works well, but it goes fast, so switch to fire arrows when you need to and run in circles. A little talking get this quest done, now you need to go to the excavation site and complete The City of the Sun so you can finally start getting into the how and why of the Zero Dawn thing.

Even if you've been in the area before, and have a campfire northwest of the waypoint, don't use it. You'll end up in the middle of hostilities right away. Instead, use the one south of the river and go stealthily. There are still a few enemies this way, just do your best to stay on the right and climb ledge to the left of the wooden barricade when you get there. After the cutscene, try to stay up high and snipe. The spot where you are is perfect, as long as you take it slowly and don't make the enemies notice you. Don't shoot Olin while you are taking down the enemies and you should be fine. If someone comes up toward you, climb the nearby wall and hide until they go away. You may need to climb a ladder on the right to get an enemy with fire arrows. Olin will get you set for the next quest, Maker's End (14/22).
You'll probably find Nil again near the Bandit Camp in this area, feel free to accept his help to take this camp down. I will only suggest that you take note of the two lookouts that you can hit from where you are, the rest is up to you. This is one of the larger camps, so you may have to search for survivors if you haven't killed everyone.

Once you're done there, your goal is on the other side of the camp anyway. Be especially careful of the Behemoths near the river. Just jump into and follow the river for a while until you can see the ruins and then proceed. As you approach the campfire, watch out for a Corrupted Watcher that might see you. There are several grass patches in this area, and there are more enemies than you might think. If you miss a shot, note the number of yellow question marks that appear. If you need to run, just be aware of the Corrupted Zone nearby. You don't want to make a bad chase worse.

As you get closer to the next part of the ruins, you will find more enemies that includes a Corruptor. The grass at the top is a good place to start and then move to the left patch down a little lower and go from there. It's good to save the Corruptor for last, it's pretty far away from your entry point anyway. This is one of those situations tailor made for the Fire Burster, the stupid thing will stand in the fire pool that you create and burn to death after a few hits. It won't even come look for you if you don't hit it with another weapon, apparently fire suddenly appearing under it is not unusual.

Once that is done, you have one more area to clear. This area includes a Deathbringer and it is well named if you're not careful. Stay where you end the cutscene and patiently take out its glowing weakpoints, stop firing when everyone else has yellow bubbles. Take your time, it is safer this way. If you mess up, try to take as many down as possible in melee while avoiding the Deathbringer's shots and get behind a big wooden shield up high. This will allow you to not get shot by the thing and take out any comers one at a time. When you finally reach the top, look to your right for more handles on a column to get another power cell for later. Be careful when you turn around, it's easy to fall. A few revelations later, head down the elevator and then it's time to make a long journey to The Grave Hoard (15/22).

Go to the closest campfire to your destination that you can, it's not too far from Devil's Grief. It may still be a long way to go and be careful of the Glinthawks when you get closer. As you get to the bottom of the mountain path, be careful of enemies. Aloy will see them, even if you don't. Once you get inside, thelow walls make okay cover. Carefully do a Silent Strike on the Watcher and then fire arrow the guy with the tank. In the holo-lock room, it's easy to fall and get hurt so try not to do that. Once the door is unlocked, it's hard to miss the next power cell. There's not a lot of cover in the next room and the enemies can cover ground fast if they see you. The best solution is to stay at the top of the balcony, snipe as you can and plant some traps. The enemies will see you and come up the stairs and get hurt or killed. This takes a while, but with so many it seems to be the safest. After a bit more information, it's time for another Deathbringer battle. Go left and rappel down to Silent Strike the guy on the roof, then make the other people your main priority so that the Deathbringer is all that is left. The strategy is the same for taking down the Deathbringer by targeting weak spots Just be aware that most of the walls and objects in here can be destroyed and run around a lot when your cover does get destroyed. The exit is an awesome roller coaster ride as soon as you're done with this quest.

It's time To Curse the Darkness (16/22) so get as close as you can. I ended up in Blackwing Snag and had to make my way past Fire Bellowbacks and bandits before too long. You'll need to do a bit of climbing pretty soon, just take it slow. Sometimes the handholds can be nearly invisible. The waypoint leads to more climbing and a forced save at a campfire. This will make it night, but I'm not really sure how that effects your stealth. The Watchers that you encounter can be whistled over (or just shot once) and taken out one at a time if you're careful. The Longlegs, if you recall, can see you in stealth if it is looking for you. Don't let Sylens bug you into hurrying, but once a sufficient number of machines are down you can go find the tree you need to climb. Once you get up there, you still have to be careful of the Longlegs up on the ledge as you zipline over its head. Don't climb the wall, and beware of the Ravagers that are in the next area. You should stay on the ledge that you start out on as long as possible (I could only take down two of the six from there), they cannot climb but that doesn't mean tick them off. Go slow as usual, targeting the turret and then the power cell on the backside once it cools down (or if it turns its back to you while searching for you) takes them down in two shots. Once you get past the cutscene, you automatically hop down into stealth. Carefully take the enemies down here so that you can get across the big bridge and over to the tree to make the next bridge. There are too many enemies to even think about fighting once you trigger the Tallneck, so run jump and climb to the rappelling point on the bridge.

After another cutscene, it's time to discover the Deep Secrets of the Earth (17/22). With all the wandering, you may already have a campfire pretty close to your goal. Not too far from the goal is an area with one Sawtooth and some Longnecks, override the big guy and shoot at one of the smaller ones to make them a threat so your new friend will clear them out.
Once you get you next goal, climb down and enter the next area. You'll have encounters here and there as you explore, the hardest one is a group of three guys each with a heavy weapon. Equip the Forgefire in Fire Burster mode and if you're lucky one of them will come to you. If you can get your hands on his weapon, it's cake from there. In the larger room a bit later, more will drop in after taking down the first few and again after that bunch is down. Grab a big gun and follow the waypoints up and down some stairs. You should be able to take down most of the enemies before you run out of ammo and one of the ones on the ground has another heavy weapon for you. The annoying guy is up top and you cannot hit him until he gets to the top of the ladder. Before you activate the terminal at the end of quest, make as much ammo as you can for the Forgefire. Try to evenly make both types, they will both come in useful soon. Once this quest is all done, you'll start The Terror of the Sun (18/22).

It's pretty short, you need to survive an encounter with a Corrupted Behemoth. You only need for it to hit two of the pillars to get your weapons back. However, hitting pillars stuns it so why not use the other two as well? Try to keep an eye on it as you dodge its various attacks. Kill it with fire, from your Forgefire, and when both ammo types are gone spam the fire arrows until the thing is dead.

It's time to head back to the Heart of the Nora (19/22) now. Before you do that, you should go visit a merhant to sell things and stock up on Blaze. Buy as much as you need to max out your Forgefire ammo, you'll need it before long. That being done, you can't travel to the campfire right next to your goal, so get as close as possible. As you approach your goal, you will see two Corruptors inside the village. If you are careful you can light them up without getting in an all out battle, at least at first. You will probably end up drawing them out of the town in the open world, just be careful of other machines out there. As you approach the area with some more enemies, you will find a heavy weapon that will help you against the Thunderjaw but the moment it runs out of ammo find cover. There is another gun near the mountain entrance, but it is not worth the risk to go get it. Friends that you have saved during queses will come out to help you in the fight as well. This is still not an easy battle, but if you take cover behind the tower near the campfire you will be mostly fine to strafe in and out and take pot shots at its weak points. Don't worry about the tail. Target the upper weapons first, then the guns by its mouth. Enter the mountain and scan as many things as you want. Some things will advance the story and some will set up the plot for the Frozen Wilds expansion and possible upcoming games.

Now it's time to go visit The Mountain That Fell (20/22), so enter a nearby door and climb the shaft to the door that was locked when you came in. There's still one Tallneck yet to go, and your goal is in that area. Whether you go after the Tallneck or not, you will need to enter that area. The Tallneck is in a Bandit Camp type area, it's hard to stealth your way through. The best thing to do is just go to the shelter on the right and take out the enemies over there. Climb the ramp to a high point then drop down a bit to a platform. Thankfully, the enemies cannot see you climb up.

Even with the Tallneck's help, you don't have a path that measures your steps right away. When you get close, if you are on the right side of the river, you will find a path leading farther up. When you get to a campfire and a supply box, look to the left of the campfire for some handholds. Once you get past a large metal object, and some more handholds, Aloy tells you what's ahead. Corruption Arrows will make them fight each other while you walk on by. After a log bridge and some more climbing, beware the Glinthawk just around the corner at the top. It's hard to avoid it seeing you, and even if you are seen you should save at the campfire here. Try your best to take the machines out one at a time, it's easy to get mobbed and try to run. If you run headlong toward your goal, you are likely to be killed that much faster unless you can avoid enemies long enough to get high up on the mountain and get the “leaving the play area” warning. If you are now on the high part of the mountain looking down at the enemies that you ran from, look to the left. Regardless of how you got here, find the crooked tree near a waterfall and climb up. I suggest you run from the Stormbird. With the fast sprint active, most of its attacks will miss you and it will stop chasing you when you get to about 20 steps. Another cutscene begins as you approach and there are no enemies inside, so happy exploring. When you reach the Y shaped beam and have rappelled down, turn around and climb a wall to reach a storeroom with the last power cell.

Once you've heard the last big reveal and found the Master Override there is a zipline to get you down. You cannot jump up and grab it, you need to run and jump at it to catch it at a lower point. Once you ride it down, you can climb back up to the workshop and get a weapon you already have. It's time to go tell your friends about The Looming Shadow (21/22) in Meridian, so fast travel there once you have climbed back down to the snowy area.
When you get there, find a merchant and buy as much Blaze and Metalburn as you need to resupply your Forgefire a few times. There will be Glinthawks in the final battle. The rest of this quest is talking and the next one, the last one, begins once you select the option to rest. You can cut a little walking time off, if you decide to check preparations, by using a campfire nearer those waypoints. If you didn't go to Free Heap, you'll be meeting Petra for the first time. You might want to complete the Armory quest too, if only to loot the chests there.

The Face of Extinction (22/22) begins once you rest in Olin's house. After the cutscenes, you face a lot of soldiers, but there are also a lot of barrels to ignite. Just be careful as much as you can the barrels will hurt you too and there are a lot of projectiles being thrown at you. Load up your Tripcaster with Blast Wires and deploy them liberally while avoiding shots. Your last enemy will be Helis, so go get the Deathbringer Gun and unload it into him. Even that won't kill him, so plant a few more wires in his path and you can actually melee him down in the end. Your next goal is the ridge, so make your way over there via zipline.

You have unlimited ammo with the heavy weapons, just make sure you are not next to an exterior wall and that you move out of the way if you start to get fired upon. It gets really hectic when enemies start closing in. There does seem to be a somewhat protected spot on the ground next to the platform, but flying enemies can still get you there. Try not to blow yourself up firing at close range with the cannon, and the Forgefire is useful against the Glinthawks. The game does save once you get to the “lull in the attack” so you don't have to totally restart if you die. Just remember you don't have to fire six shots at once, rapid fire can take down many enemies that close in faster in many cases. Of course, six shots works well to take down the Deathbringer. The worst part of this section is the Stormbird that comes over to attack you. The lightning it leaves on your platform does damage over time if you stand in it. Good news is that once that thing is down, it's just the Deathbringer between you and the final part of the quest.

Run, jump and climb your way to the next goal and do it some more after the cutscene. Ignore enemies you see, they are too busy attacking others. Feel free to collect herbs as you go if you wish, they may be helpful in the final battle. At the broken bridge, go down to your friends and a few supply chests before heading onward. Keep firing at the Deathbringer's weak points and if it opens up get those too. Do your best to avoid getting hit as your cover is destroyed around you and let your friends be helpful when more machines attack. There is a save part way through the battle, so that's good. Once the five-minute timer begins, blast the Deathbringer with Fire Burster shells until it falls. All that's left now is to take care of Hades, watch the end of the game and get your trophy on the “Congratulations” screen.

If you've read my Seeker74 guides on Trueachievements, you should be familiar with my style. If not, go check them out if you need help with Insanity for Mass Effect 2, 3 or Andromeda (I've also posted others, and you can find my complete list on the site). The first thing you need to consider is that you definitely want to do this on a New Game Plus with Frozen Wilds completed for the Banuk weapons. They usually do more damage than the Adept weapons that come with New Game Plus because of the charging up capability. Try to attack with a fully charged shot (the X crosshair) when you can. It's also a good idea to use the Shield Weaver armor (unless you really want to make this harder on yourself) from the power cell quest, even if you have Heavy armor with purple mods in the slots. Also, the autosaves can be a bit unpredictable so saving when you get to a campfire can save a headache (I'm speaking from experience here.)

My selected weapons are the three bows and the Tripcaster to begin, I may suggest swapping out a weapon from time to time. Here's just a quick reference of what you need for the most useful arrow types:
6 Precision Arrows: 10 Ridge Wood, 8 Metal Shards, 5 Wires
12 Fire Arrows: 2 Ridge Wood, 5 Metal Shards, 3 Blaze
6 Corruption Arrows: 10 Ridge Wood, 5 Metal Shards, 2 Metalburn
Tripcaster Ammo: All require 8 Metal Shards and 4 Wires. Shock needs 8 Sparkers and the Blast and Fire Wires need 5 and 4 Blaze respectively.
I don't recommend using the Sling, making multiple enemies mad at the same time is not recommended and it has short range.
Of the three speciality weapons (Icrerail, Stormslinger and Forgefire) that you get from the Banuk, only the Forgefire is really useful. I'll let you know the best times to use it. It uses a bit of Metalburn and a lot of Blaze for crafting ammo.

You should start with some unspent skill points due to losing access to some later skills. I'll mention levels for things, but that is just to keep things organized. Obviously, at level 60 plus, you can take on anything that you want to (the levels above that don't give you any more HP, you're stuck at 800). The first thing that you will notice is that many times weak point shots will only stun your enemy instead of outright killing it. Stealth still works well to keep you out of sight, and hitting an enemy and waiting for it to stand down from yellow status repeatedly is usually a good alternative to a battle.

The Sawtooth that you have to take down (now with no visual health bar, more damage equals more sparks) is best dealt with by setting a fire wire along its path and staying in cover while it wanders over to investigate. A silent strike will weaken it and you can melee it down while it is still disoriented.

There's a lot of distance to cover on foot as you go through the game, so it is wise to stay in stealth as much as you can as you make your way between campfires. You don't need to be attacked unnecessarily, so be aware of your surroundings. Don't be afraid to take down a bot who gets too close if you can do so without drawing attention to yourself and have a good chance at a one hit kill or at least to severely weaken it. Rolling into cover helps sometimes and taking the long way around a rock or something that breaks the view of a herd of bots is preferable to combat. Beware of campfires that are near bots, there are a few of those. I recommend still doing Bandit Camps, Tallnecks and Cauldrons because all of these things will help you in one way or another.

The next waypoint is near a campfire that you have been to, minimizing your walking. The Proving combat (even getting a trophy from the Grazers) can be a bit hectic. One hit will take your shields away, but they seem to regenerate pretty quick given the chance. There's plenty of cover, and the enemies that come to melee range don't gang up on you until near the end of the ambush sequence.

Don't feel the need to heal every time you get hit, it takes about the same amount of time to heal as it does for your shields to recharge. If your health is low after you are done with a batlte, you can heal then if you feel the need. If you're like me, you've got three bags full of herbs and full potions from the previous playthrough. Keep your herb bags full, but don't feel like you need to loot everything. Figure out which resources you need the most based on your playstyle.

Don't forget to get the power cell in the mountain before you leave. After you emerge from the mountain, loot all the plants that you see so that you will have good health recovery for the coming battle. Set some blast wires or other traps at the gate quickly, the battle begins swiftly on this difficulty. Select your fire arrows then roll and jump to keep your distance from the Corrupter's tail attacks and avoid the corruption projectiles. Try to concentrate on it, the braves will do a pretty good job of taking down the rest of the bots. The wooden cover in the area is soon destroyed, so it doesn't help you for long. This override attachment (PSI) allows you to override: Watchers, Striders, Tallnecks, Chargers and Redeye Watchers.

Be careful overriding the Strider, don't rush in right away. The herd will separate soon after you arrive and the ride to the next town is short if you press X a few times when your mount slows down. Once you get a new waypoint, get on your mount and try to follow the road. Nearly one thousand steps is better done mounted. About halfway there you will find a Tallneck, just be careful of the machines over in the ruins if you decide to go after it. In case you forgot how to get onto the Tallneck, climb the stairs and zipline to a spot near a rusty ramp that you can use. The stunning wave from overriding it can be useful if you didn't kill everything in the area. You will have picked up The War Chief's Trail (8/22) at this point, and since it is closer to your current location it's a good idea to make that one active. You'll be coming back this way soon, thankfully there's a campfire that will shorten the journey. Watch out for machines that may have repopulated the ruins when you come back.

In the upcoming battle, stay high up and do not zipline down into the camp. The enemies have a hard time hitting you up high and you can take them down pretty easily. Go around the edge and make sure that you get all the blaze canisters.

Go back to the ruin near your starting point (the only one on the map in the southern area) and get the other power cell. The Corrupted Zone in the south is level 15, but the nearby Bandit Camp is only level 7 and Nil is nearby to the Armory Bunker with his quest that leads to his of helping you if you talk to him when you get closer. I suggest paying a visit to the Bunker and slotting in the first two cells so you can access the room and get the supply chests, you might need the healing items and crafting supplies within. You'll want to pick up the rest of the power cells as you go to get access to the other room in here that has more supply crates.
You can avoid some walking toward the Bandit Camp by using the campfire near the ruins. You might see a party of four bandits near the camp as you approach. You definitely want to disable the alarms in these camps and the prisoners are good for helping you. It's easy to lose stealth here and be overwhelmed if you are not careful, so be careful. Don't forget to talk to Nil after you're done. I recommend working on A Seeker At The Gates (7/22) since it is closer. I suggest going to Cauldron Sigma first because overrides are a good thing. The mapped path takes you through the edge of a Corrupted Zone, but if you bear right after the bridge you can avoid hostiles for the moment. The Underequipped quest seems hard at first, but the hunting party will help a lot.

While your still near the Cauldron, go ahead and go after it. Just be careful how you take care of the Scrappers and Watchers in the area. The good news is that there are others in the area fighting too, the bad news is that there is not much in the way of red grass. If you get into a melee battle, Sylens' Lance does a pretty quick job on machines if you have some decent purple Spear Damage on it. You don't have to kill more than the ones that are keeping you away from the door. Inside, don't forget to use the triangular pipes to your advantage as you stealthily take down your enemies. Also, don't forget there are no save points in here so if you die you get to start over. Ride the box all the way to the end and take out the Watchers (more Watchers and a Shell Walker are optional, there is a ramp on the right before you get that far.) A bridge, a zipline, a climb, another bridge and some maneuvering gets you to the core. You might want to take down the patrolling Watchers from your high perch before you head down. Remember, the Fire Bellowback is weak against fire, so set a few fire wires and/or blast traps between it and whatever pillar you decide to override so it has to run through your traps to get to you, more machines come in through a sealed door. You'll still have a fight on your hands, try to target the chin bags and the big thing on its back while it breathes fire at you, when the big thing goes the machine often does too. You can now override: Grazers, Scrappers, Lancehorns and Sawtooths.

The sounds of battle are still there when you come out, so fast travel to the campfire nearby and continue the Underequipped quest. If you can break the Stalker's line of sight, you can get into some tall grass and avoid being hit for a few moments so it will go back to wandering. From this position, you can either take out the mine launchers with Hardpoint Arrows or wait for it to come into Silent Strike range to weaken it severely and take it down with melee.
There's a Corrupted Zone north of here, on the way to the next step in Revenge of the Nora (9/22), that you might want to tackle. It's level 18 with a Fire Bellowback and Chargers as the targets. Take it slowly. Chargers are tough melee targets, and they are fast, but you can take them down fast with a horn shot. You definitely need to target the weak points on all of them and the wall here helps the machines cool down from full yellow quite a bit before they can come around to look for you.

Back to your main quest, you'll get some help from braves as you go. I'll be taking them in numerical order and I'll provide anything that you need to know.
I. The sun will be rising as you attack this one. A couple of Corrupted Watchers and some bandits are on the edge of the camp as you approach. Missing the Silent Strike on the closest Watcher can really mess up your strategy, so be careful.
II. There are more Corrupted Watchers on the way to the second one. Thankfully, the campfire in the area is out of their sight. The direct path is blocked so you need to come around to the right. The cultists are rounded out by Scrappers and Glinthawks this time.
III. There are a couple of Corrupted Scrappers on the way to this one, be careful. Once you get there, the alarm is not too far from the edge of the camp so make that your priority. I did not run into any machines bigger than a Watcher.

Follow Varl and do as he says. Once the cutscene is over, do your best to stay stealthy as you get in range to target the blaze stockpile. The first place you should go is the tall grass to the left a little down from where you start. The Bellowback might see you and come investigate, so get as close to the fence while still remaining in the grass so it won't step on you when it comes over. You might want to take it down with weak point shots since it's acting like a watch dog. Do it slowly though, wait for it to walk as far away as possible, you don't need to raise the attention of the entire camp. If you mess up, run to the blaze and shoot it. The cutscene rescues you from a nasty death and allows you break line of sight of whatever enemies are left. Clear the survivors and you're done with this quest.

You have one more Corrupted Zone to clear before you can work on the other main quest, which one is up to you. The one nearest to Mother's Crown is closest to a campfire you should have visited. It consists of Grazers and not much cover, but a good hit to the things on the back will take one down fast.

Head north to Hunter's Gathering if you need to sell anything or want to save your game before you go wandering off into the misty part of the map. There are a lot of machines in 1000 steps between here and there, so be careful. The campfire nearby is surrounded by Lancehorns, you just need to hit their rear weak spots for easy take downs. Soon after, you'll run across a Sawtooth, but you can override it to get past. You'll need to decide if you want make your way through a Corrupted Zone of Watchers and Scrappers not too long after that. Alternately, you can go north to a campfire and save your game and then continue along that road. You can climb pretty high into the nearby mountains (resulting in a snowstorm) and take out the Scrappers easily enough by infecting two of the three with Corruption and being too high for the third one to hit you with its weapon. You can take a shortcut south from here to the Two Teeth Bandit Camp and liberate it for another campfire, I suggest you snipe from up here and then drop carefully to a wooden platform to take out the alarm nearby.

There's a campfire to the west, but you could not have reached that without going through the camp to get to it. When you get near the waypoint, you have to fight a Corruptor and a few machines, get into the grass as soon as you can. Silent Strike whatever comes near you and if the Corruptor notices you, run until it loses interest. Head back to the fortress and help them take it down, they're pretty effective. This completes the main quest and there are a few side quests in this town (Balahn offers one in fact) if you wish to pick any up. Another Tallneck and a Cauldron should now have popped up on your map. The Cauldron is closer, so I'll cover that next.

As you get closer, you see that it is Cauldron Rho. You should discover a campfire as you approach. It's a good idea to save before you head over to the entrance, even though there are only Watchers outside. You can't get in that way, so go find a place nearby where you can get down. There's a Watcher on the other side of the door that will notice you the moment you complete your override. The next door leads to two Watchers and a Ravager, the good news is that one of the vents has already been opened so you have a bit of cover right away. Take out the Watchers as soon as possible and then you can ride the ring and floating box across the room. You should be able to take the Ravager down pretty quick once you land if you take out its cannon right away. The next room you come to has a Watcher watching the room below and you can take it out with a not quite Silent Strike. Two below might come up to investigate. Once that is done, climb the wall instead of opening the door. This takes you to a perfect sniping position because the machines cannot retaliate as you taken them down, there are some Watchers, a Ravager and two Longlegs.

Once that room is clear, you are enemy free to the core where you'll meet the Snapmaw for the boss. Thankfully, the game saves as you enter this room. Once you override the forcefield, a Ravager joins the battle. So now you've got two machines with ranged attacks chasing you. The best way to take these guys down is rather cheesy, but it works. Set at least one Blast Wire at each of the shielded doors, the Ravager comes in one of them but I'm not sure which one. Set at least one wire at each of the breaks in the central forcefield wall and then set a few more at various places anchored on one side to the forcefield wall extending out into the room. Now you just need to lead your foes on a merry chase through all of your wires and shoot fire arrows at them when they stop for a moment from being damaged. You can now override: Longlegs, Shell Walkers, Snapmaws and Ravagers. Take out a few Watchers as you emerge before you extend the bridge, but be careful because some of them are Redeye.
Heading straight west toward the next Tallneck avoids a lot of enemies. You'll see it from a distance and, as you get closer, hopefully you'll see the Glinthawk flying around nearby before it sees you. It can see you climbing the Tallneck and knock you off, so it's a good idea to take it out. The other dangers are the many other machines in the area, because you have to get past a lot of Watchers to get on an island surrounded and populated by Snapmaws to climb the Tallneck. A fun thing is to try out your new override by getting the attention of a Snapmaw from stealth and then, once it's your friend, leading it to the island and then getting out of the way while it fights for you.

It's a long way to Meridian and the mapped route leads past a Bandit Camp. I suggest taking it out, if only for another place to save your game. Once again heading for Meridian, you will see something huge in the distance but your Focus won't identify it. Don't get too close, just go down the steep path nearby to the Shell Walker convoy area. Some people are fighting there so you can help them out and maybe get yourself a new friend with an override. Head for Meridian now. It's pretty far, though, so you will probably run into some trouble before you get there. There's a bridge with a couple Carja that are being attacked by Broadheads, you should help them out. This will put you on a non-hostile path to Meridian. This will advance The City of the Sun (10/22) and start The Field of the Fallen (11/22). Take heart, you're about halfway done with the storyline!

The map will now show the Tallneck and Cauldron in this area. The safe areas run for a while as you go south, but eventually it's back to hide-and-seek with the machines as you venture through the mist. When you see the glowing red things, give that Stalker territory a wide berth, the Sawtooth nearby is a lot easier to handle. You'll soon come to another Bandit Camp, but this one has bandits walking around before you get to the camp. Once that's done, deal with some Ravagers and Fire Bellowbacks as you make your way to the next Cauldron.
Cauldron Xi is the one that is part of an enemy stronghold. Carefully make your way inside and into the grass. Thankfully, these guys love stockpiling blaze as much as you love shooting it. The best place to go is over to the far right so you can climb up to the higher area and the bad guys are funneled up the ramps pretty much. Find the key and enter the door at the very top. There are cultists as you progress and not a lot of cover, other than objects to hide behind. When you reach the big room with the Tallneck head, the game will save. The upper area is great for sniping. Once you have the room clear, climb the ramp on the far side, looking out for more enemies that might not have come down. In the core area, set a few wires up because it's hard to remain unseen for long. The override of the Cauldron will get you attacked by both machines and people and you have to survive for 2 minutes. So before you trigger that, go grab the machine gun from the dead body and put it on the high platform that one of the ramps leads to. If you die, the weapon goes away, so try not to die. It only has 60 shots, and it goes fast. Things keep spawning until the time is up, so your best bet may be to go hide and let the battle rage and then see about the survivors before you look for the exit. You will definitely want to loot bodies for potions if you used a few, especially if you emptied your herb pouches. You're not out yet, apparently they broke the elevator so you need to get out past a bunch of Stalkers. Thankfully, they are not all in the same place at the same time. The trigger attack on Sylens Lance delivers a large shock, so if you find yourself toe to toe with one of these things, go for it since it is also the main weakness of this machine. Once they are all down and you have climbed the pillar, there is a battle going on in the hallway in front of you. Participate as you wish and then get out of here, where you find more enemies to fight. The Tallneck is not too far from here, you'll need to take out some Longlegs in the area. These are the first enemies you will find that can see you in stealth.

Scroll your map north and you should see a Tallneck in the mist where your two main quest goals are. Travel to the closest fire you have to that area and head on up. You'll need to go around a huge mountain to get to the Tallneck, so you'll probably end up running into Erend on the way. Go ahead and help him out with Into the Borderlands (12/22). When you get to the ruins, the people go down easily enough but the machines seem to be enhanced somehow, and they can see you in stealth. The first thing you should do is run away and get out of their sight. There's a big tree and some ruins you can hide in until they are out of yellow mode. At this point, they should both be targetting Erend. He does a good job of hitting them with freeze so that you can follow up with fire arrows. A little investigation completes his quest and now you can go the rest of the way to the Tallneck or look further north for another Cauldron.
I'm going after the Tallneck first. The most direct route requires following a mapped road between two mountains and through a Ravager herd. Searching the pile of junk in the area gains the attention of one of them, so you can override it and send it off against its friends. This should weaken the survivors for whatever strategy you have in mind. Shortly after, the most direct route takes you through a low area between two plateaus, Ravagers on the one side and Tramplers on the other. The Ravager side also has a campfire with pretty nice supply crates next to it. This is probaby a better option than the next campfire that has Longlegs around it. There's really no easy way to the Tallneck, it's a big desert area with several kinds of machines and a pretty good amount of tall grass. It's really just a matter of watching your surroundings and being careful from one tuft to the next. You'll definitely need to take out a few machines, there are really too many to avoid them all. That being said, the best way to avoid being absolutely torn apart by a dozen machines is to override a Ravager and let it cause some damage. Don't do this from the area nearest the area near the Tallneck, you really don't want to draw the attention of the Longlegs. After that, you can do the same a couple more times to finally get to a place where you can climb to the Tallneck. Now get yourself to the last Cauldron. We haven't fought the Thunderjaw in a tiny area yet, something to look forward to I guess.

Near the village on the north side of the river you will come across an area full of machines. They are unable to get up where you are if you stay on the cliffside, so be careful of any ranged attacks and take them down at your leisure. As you approach Cauldron Zeta, you'll notice the glowing objects that mean that a Stalker (three really) is nearby. Be careful, or better yet override one to help you with the other two. The route to the core is the easiest yet and there are two Watchers there to greet you. The promised Thunderjaw is there as well, patiently waiting to be let out. It's quite literally a one machine army and you can't really stand still for a moment because of the amount of attacks this thing can bring against you. Wires and traps will soften it up, but there is not much space in here to run from it and you just have to shoot it as you can until it's dead. If you absolutely cannot beat this thing, the designers were nice enough to put handholds on the walls to let you back out into the world the way you came in.

Once that's out of the way, you're done with overrides and should be able to override anything as long as you can sneak up on it. Head to the palace now for Into the Borderlands to advance that quest. Take a campfire to get closer a lot faster. On the way you might run across some warrior fighting Glinthawks, this will anger the Rockbreakers across the river in the Corrupted Zone. They can't cross the river, in fact they get stuck in the water and you can snipe them easily. Aim for the tail and let go before the weak point is right in front of your bow to hit it. The Trampler herd you may run across is pretty easy as well, just hit the big weak spot on the belly twice for a nice explosion and a guaranteed fire kill before it can ever get near you. Closer to Dervahl's Camp you'll find some Snapmaws and once you get there use the advice in the cutscene and free the captive machines. You don't need to free them all, in fact it's best to save the ones nearest the cellar for the heavy enemy that is about to emerge. Go down to make this quest complete. Now head back to Meridian for The Sun Shall Fall (13/22).
Most of this is running around, but I suggest after you take out the henchmen on the bridge that you equip the Forgefire. You will be facing a lot of Glinthawks in a short time. First, though, you need to take down more henchmen. The Forgefire works well, but it goes fast, so switch to fire arrows when you need to and run in circles. A little talking get this quest done, now you need to go to the excavation site and complete The City of the Sun so you can finally start getting into the how and why of the Zero Dawn thing.

Even if you've been in the area before, and have a campfire northwest of the waypoint, don't use it. You'll end up in the middle of hostilities right away. Instead, use the one south of the river and go stealthily. There are still a few enemies this way, just do your best to stay on the right and climb ledge to the left of the wooden barricade when you get there. After the cutscene, try to stay up high and snipe. The spot where you are is perfect, as long as you take it slowly and don't make the enemies notice you. Don't shoot Olin while you are taking down the enemies and you should be fine. If someone comes up toward you, climb the nearby wall and hide until they go away. You may need to climb a ladder on the right to get an enemy with fire arrows. Olin will get you set for the next quest, Maker's End (14/22).
You'll probably find Nil again near the Bandit Camp in this area, feel free to accept his help to take this camp down. I will only suggest that you take note of the two lookouts that you can hit from where you are, the rest is up to you. This is one of the larger camps, so you may have to search for survivors if you haven't killed everyone.

Once you're done there, your goal is on the other side of the camp anyway. Be especially careful of the Behemoths near the river. Just jump into and follow the river for a while until you can see the ruins and then proceed. As you approach the campfire, watch out for a Corrupted Watcher that might see you. There are several grass patches in this area, and there are more enemies than you might think. If you miss a shot, note the number of yellow question marks that appear. If you need to run, just be aware of the Corrupted Zone nearby. You don't want to make a bad chase worse.

As you get closer to the next part of the ruins, you will find more enemies that includes a Corruptor. The grass at the top is a good place to start and then move to the left patch down a little lower and go from there. It's good to save the Corruptor for last, it's pretty far away from your entry point anyway. This is one of those situations tailor made for the Fire Burster, the stupid thing will stand in the fire pool that you create and burn to death after a few hits. It won't even come look for you if you don't hit it with another weapon, apparently fire suddenly appearing under it is not unusual.

Once that is done, you have one more area to clear. This area includes a Deathbringer and it is well named if you're not careful. Stay where you end the cutscene and patiently take out its glowing weakpoints, stop firing when everyone else has yellow bubbles. Take your time, it is safer this way. If you mess up, try to take as many down as possible in melee while avoiding the Deathbringer's shots and get behind a big wooden shield up high. This will allow you to not get shot by the thing and take out any comers one at a time. When you finally reach the top, look to your right for more handles on a column to get another power cell for later. Be careful when you turn around, it's easy to fall. A few revelations later, head down the elevator and then it's time to make a long journey to The Grave Hoard (15/22).

Go to the closest campfire to your destination that you can, it's not too far from Devil's Grief. It may still be a long way to go and be careful of the Glinthawks when you get closer. As you get to the bottom of the mountain path, be careful of enemies. Aloy will see them, even if you don't. Once you get inside, thelow walls make okay cover. Carefully do a Silent Strike on the Watcher and then fire arrow the guy with the tank. In the holo-lock room, it's easy to fall and get hurt so try not to do that. Once the door is unlocked, it's hard to miss the next power cell. There's not a lot of cover in the next room and the enemies can cover ground fast if they see you. The best solution is to stay at the top of the balcony, snipe as you can and plant some traps. The enemies will see you and come up the stairs and get hurt or killed. This takes a while, but with so many it seems to be the safest. After a bit more information, it's time for another Deathbringer battle. Go left and rappel down to Silent Strike the guy on the roof, then make the other people your main priority so that the Deathbringer is all that is left. The strategy is the same for taking down the Deathbringer by targeting weak spots Just be aware that most of the walls and objects in here can be destroyed and run around a lot when your cover does get destroyed. The exit is an awesome roller coaster ride as soon as you're done with this quest.

It's time To Curse the Darkness (16/22) so get as close as you can. I ended up in Blackwing Snag and had to make my way past Fire Bellowbacks and bandits before too long. You'll need to do a bit of climbing pretty soon, just take it slow. Sometimes the handholds can be nearly invisible. The waypoint leads to more climbing and a forced save at a campfire. This will make it night, but I'm not really sure how that effects your stealth. The Watchers that you encounter can be whistled over (or just shot once) and taken out one at a time if you're careful. The Longlegs, if you recall, can see you in stealth if it is looking for you. Don't let Sylens bug you into hurrying, but once a sufficient number of machines are down you can go find the tree you need to climb. Once you get up there, you still have to be careful of the Longlegs up on the ledge as you zipline over its head. Don't climb the wall, and beware of the Ravagers that are in the next area. You should stay on the ledge that you start out on as long as possible (I could only take down two of the six from there), they cannot climb but that doesn't mean tick them off. Go slow as usual, targeting the turret and then the power cell on the backside once it cools down (or if it turns its back to you while searching for you) takes them down in two shots. Once you get past the cutscene, you automatically hop down into stealth. Carefully take the enemies down here so that you can get across the big bridge and over to the tree to make the next bridge. There are too many enemies to even think about fighting once you trigger the Tallneck, so run jump and climb to the rappelling point on the bridge.

After another cutscene, it's time to discover the Deep Secrets of the Earth (17/22). With all the wandering, you may already have a campfire pretty close to your goal. Not too far from the goal is an area with one Sawtooth and some Longnecks, override the big guy and shoot at one of the smaller ones to make them a threat so your new friend will clear them out.
Once you get you next goal, climb down and enter the next area. You'll have encounters here and there as you explore, the hardest one is a group of three guys each with a heavy weapon. Equip the Forgefire in Fire Burster mode and if you're lucky one of them will come to you. If you can get your hands on his weapon, it's cake from there. In the larger room a bit later, more will drop in after taking down the first few and again after that bunch is down. Grab a big gun and follow the waypoints up and down some stairs. You should be able to take down most of the enemies before you run out of ammo and one of the ones on the ground has another heavy weapon for you. The annoying guy is up top and you cannot hit him until he gets to the top of the ladder. Before you activate the terminal at the end of quest, make as much ammo as you can for the Forgefire. Try to evenly make both types, they will both come in useful soon. Once this quest is all done, you'll start The Terror of the Sun (18/22).

It's pretty short, you need to survive an encounter with a Corrupted Behemoth. You only need for it to hit two of the pillars to get your weapons back. However, hitting pillars stuns it so why not use the other two as well? Try to keep an eye on it as you dodge its various attacks. Kill it with fire, from your Forgefire, and when both ammo types are gone spam the fire arrows until the thing is dead.

It's time to head back to the Heart of the Nora (19/22) now. Before you do that, you should go visit a merhant to sell things and stock up on Blaze. Buy as much as you need to max out your Forgefire ammo, you'll need it before long. That being done, you can't travel to the campfire right next to your goal, so get as close as possible. As you approach your goal, you will see two Corruptors inside the village. If you are careful you can light them up without getting in an all out battle, at least at first. You will probably end up drawing them out of the town in the open world, just be careful of other machines out there. As you approach the area with some more enemies, you will find a heavy weapon that will help you against the Thunderjaw but the moment it runs out of ammo find cover. There is another gun near the mountain entrance, but it is not worth the risk to go get it. Friends that you have saved during queses will come out to help you in the fight as well. This is still not an easy battle, but if you take cover behind the tower near the campfire you will be mostly fine to strafe in and out and take pot shots at its weak points. Don't worry about the tail. Target the upper weapons first, then the guns by its mouth. Enter the mountain and scan as many things as you want. Some things will advance the story and some will set up the plot for the Frozen Wilds expansion and possible upcoming games.

Now it's time to go visit The Mountain That Fell (20/22), so enter a nearby door and climb the shaft to the door that was locked when you came in. There's still one Tallneck yet to go, and your goal is in that area. Whether you go after the Tallneck or not, you will need to enter that area. The Tallneck is in a Bandit Camp type area, it's hard to stealth your way through. The best thing to do is just go to the shelter on the right and take out the enemies over there. Climb the ramp to a high point then drop down a bit to a platform. Thankfully, the enemies cannot see you climb up.

Even with the Tallneck's help, you don't have a path that measures your steps right away. When you get close, if you are on the right side of the river, you will find a path leading farther up. When you get to a campfire and a supply box, look to the left of the campfire for some handholds. Once you get past a large metal object, and some more handholds, Aloy tells you what's ahead. Corruption Arrows will make them fight each other while you walk on by. After a log bridge and some more climbing, beware the Glinthawk just around the corner at the top. It's hard to avoid it seeing you, and even if you are seen you should save at the campfire here. Try your best to take the machines out one at a time, it's easy to get mobbed and try to run. If you run headlong toward your goal, you are likely to be killed that much faster unless you can avoid enemies long enough to get high up on the mountain and get the “leaving the play area” warning. If you are now on the high part of the mountain looking down at the enemies that you ran from, look to the left. Regardless of how you got here, find the crooked tree near a waterfall and climb up. I suggest you run from the Stormbird. With the fast sprint active, most of its attacks will miss you and it will stop chasing you when you get to about 20 steps. Another cutscene begins as you approach and there are no enemies inside, so happy exploring. When you reach the Y shaped beam and have rappelled down, turn around and climb a wall to reach a storeroom with the last power cell.

Once you've heard the last big reveal and found the Master Override there is a zipline to get you down. You cannot jump up and grab it, you need to run and jump at it to catch it at a lower point. Once you ride it down, you can climb back up to the workshop and get a weapon you already have. It's time to go tell your friends about The Looming Shadow (21/22) in Meridian, so fast travel there once you have climbed back down to the snowy area.
When you get there, find a merchant and buy as much Blaze and Metalburn as you need to resupply your Forgefire a few times. There will be Glinthawks in the final battle. The rest of this quest is talking and the next one, the last one, begins once you select the option to rest. You can cut a little walking time off, if you decide to check preparations, by using a campfire nearer those waypoints. If you didn't go to Free Heap, you'll be meeting Petra for the first time. You might want to complete the Armory quest too, if only to loot the chests there.

The Face of Extinction (22/22) begins once you rest in Olin's house. After the cutscenes, you face a lot of soldiers, but there are also a lot of barrels to ignite. Just be careful as much as you can the barrels will hurt you too and there are a lot of projectiles being thrown at you. Load up your Tripcaster with Blast Wires and deploy them liberally while avoiding shots. Your last enemy will be Helis, so go get the Deathbringer Gun and unload it into him. Even that won't kill him, so plant a few more wires in his path and you can actually melee him down in the end. Your next goal is the ridge, so make your way over there via zipline.

You have unlimited ammo with the heavy weapons, just make sure you are not next to an exterior wall and that you move out of the way if you start to get fired upon. It gets really hectic when enemies start closing in. There does seem to be a somewhat protected spot on the ground next to the platform, but flying enemies can still get you there. Try not to blow yourself up firing at close range with the cannon, and the Forgefire is useful against the Glinthawks. The game does save once you get to the “lull in the attack” so you don't have to totally restart if you die. Just remember you don't have to fire six shots at once, rapid fire can take down many enemies that close in faster in many cases. Of course, six shots works well to take down the Deathbringer. The worst part of this section is the Stormbird that comes over to attack you. The lightning it leaves on your platform does damage over time if you stand in it. Good news is that once that thing is down, it's just the Deathbringer between you and the final part of the quest.

Run, jump and climb your way to the next goal and do it some more after the cutscene. Ignore enemies you see, they are too busy attacking others. Feel free to collect herbs as you go if you wish, they may be helpful in the final battle. At the broken bridge, go down to your friends and a few supply chests before heading onward. Keep firing at the Deathbringer's weak points and if it opens up get those too. Do your best to avoid getting hit as your cover is destroyed around you and let your friends be helpful when more machines attack. There is a save part way through the battle, so that's good. Once the five-minute timer begins, blast the Deathbringer with Fire Burster shells until it falls. All that's left now is to take care of Hades, watch the end of the game and get your trophy on the “Congratulations” screen.

Instead of bombarding you with tips, simply follow any of the speed runner guides out there: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Horizon++ultra+...

it pretty much revolves around:
- Finishing the game at least once while maxing out Aloy (DLC weapons helps a ton), weapons, skills, etc.. essentially 100% your first playthrough.
- Getting the Shield Weaver outfit, which can be found here (vid by PowerPyx) - Roll a ton (massing ) to avoid 90% of most battles to your next objective.

Good example: