top 12 epic moments in horizon zero dawn in no particular order

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• sylens busting you out of the sun ring on overridden striders and seeing him in person for the first time after only interacting over the focuses and via holograms when i thought i was gonna have to fight two corrupters with     no weapons
• finally getting the door scan to let you into the cradle beneath the mountain only to realize that because the door was locked everyone inside was trapped. and then you walk through the room from before apollo was purged and see all the focuses intended for the people in the new generation they were all only one locked door away from :(
• at the final battle in meridean when helis shows up in the palace and avad tries to hold aloy back and yells 'he will cut you down!' and then you get to rappel down the side of the building like a badass. also getting to say 'turn your face to the sun' to him before you kill him just like he did in the beginning of the game when he tried to kill you. epic. epic. epic. epic. epic.
• seeing a tallneck for the first time + climbing up onto its head to override. ancient taxi that only goes in a circle.
• the final scene where you find elisabet's skeleton in the old armor, and aloy, although she is elisabet's clone, sees her as a mother + takes the earth locket and lights up her focus for her. plus the audio tape playing in the background really got me. also if you did the power cell quests you are wearing identical armor WTFFF my heart
• watching the hologram playback of elisabet going to seal the door at gaia prime knowing she would be trapped outside forever and die...the soundtrack was so beautiful   DIE
• ted faro revealing he wiped apollo and then suffocating all the alphas inside gaia prime. first time it hit me how dark a lot of this game was. i hate this guy so much
• dont know why but its always the best to spot a bandit hideout and have to look around for nil who is always standing on a hill somewhere waxing poetic about how killing bandits is the only thrill there is
• obligatory sun king marriage proposal. we get it avad you're a bimbo.
• learning that operation enduring victory and zero dawn where complete lies, and the civilians were being tricked into feeding the machines long enough for the people at zero dawn to prepare gaia (which then went on to fail, sort of, anyway)...my jaw was on the FLOOR i never saw it come. like ever. at all. and yet it was so obvious the whole time the game completely bamboozled me.
• randomly deciding to go back home to the embrace out of boredom to see if anything had changed and realizing the cabin aloy grew up in with rost is now rost's grave...depressi. also knowing that the nora gave him a proper grave despite being an outcast...agh. you are DAD....
• when nil's crasy ass insists you two need to have one last adrenaline rush together but makes you go to a circular clifftop beforehand for the drama of it all.....and then when you meet him up there he's like so what do you say? how about we try to kill each other? and this isnt exactly a moment because its a choice that can go one of three ways but the first time i said sure yeah because i thought he was joking and then i actually had to kill him hellllppp. and how you can loot his corpse afterward but he has licherally nothing of value. also if you dont kill him and he comes to meridian to say weird shit and freak out the guards. its just so fucking funny