Developer Guerrilla Games has stunned fans with the launch trailer for Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores. Until today, no story details for the DLC had been revealed, but you can see a few sprinkled throughout this trailer that are going to make it very hard to wait for the Burning Shores to release next week.
The launch trailer for Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is the first to include dialogue and reference the story in any way. It shows Aloy being attacked by an unknown technology and falling into the Burning Shores region. This gives context to why she’s there, why she’s trapped, and why she may have lost some of the upgrades she acquired in the main story. But there’s so much more to unpack.
The Burning Shores launch trailer details new weapons, a potentially permanent companion, and could close a plot hole
The new companion hinted at in a recent blog post with the game’s lead writer, Seyka, is also seen in this trailer. It looks like she’ll be a permanent companion, one who is always with Aloy, unlike the companions from the base game who only join you for specific missions. Seyka says someone has trapped her and her tribe, the Quen, in the Burning Shores. This is likely the same person who caused the blast that trapped Aloy there.
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As the trailer goes on, it shows Aloy and Seyka climbing and flying together, something the new companion has likely never done before. We see a Quen leader, probably Admiral Gerrit, and a few scenes depicting various areas in the Burning Shores. The trailer ends by showing Aloy wielding a form of Zenith technology. The Far Zenith people were the main antagonists of the base game, and to see Aloy using their technology shows that she must find a new ship or resource from the colony in the region. It’s lucky she did because it looks like the only weapon powerful enough to take down the still-living Horus machine staring her down at the end.
Spoilers for the ending of Horizon Forbidden West. At the end of the game’s campaign, Aloy and her friends manage to disable the shields the Zenith people use so that machines can attack them. The battle shows many Zenith dying, but some are carried away. Burning Shores’ antagonist could be a Zenith who managed to escape a machine. Finding themselves in the unfamiliar region, they could be responsible for the Horus machine’s awakening and whatever the blasts that have trapped Aloy in the Burning Shores are. They’re also almost certainly part of where Aloy gets her new weapon from.
