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Because Horizon Forbidden West draws heavily from the past, there are references to pop culture, intentional and not, in the world. It’s easy to see how these memes were created based on that knowledge. There will be spoilers ahead for some aspects of the game.
8 Vault Girl
Horizon Forbidden West is full of vaults, and the first game was as well. It’s hard not to liken this series to Fallout since that made the idea of highly unique bomb shelters popular. It would be pretty amazing if one of the side quests in Horizon Forbidden West led to a Fallout-inspired vault with a member of the Brotherhood of Steel standing guard.
Imagine what a power suit and a Gatling gun would do in this world against the robotic beasts.
7 Punished Kotallo
Kotallo loses his arm early on in the game. Most characters in that resulting incident don’t come back in the story. It was a surprise to see Kotallo return in any form let alone become a member of the team. Despite him losing an arm, Kotallo is still a mighty warrior, although how he does it may be a bit hard to believe.
It would be cool if Kotallo could get a cyborg replacement in the sequel or through DLC. It would be even cooler if he could get the Snake’s arm, as shown in this meme, from Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain.
6 Future Boy Conan
The title is a pun on an old anime as well as the fact that this meme highlights Conan O’Brien in the future. This image is from Death Stranding which also uses holograms albeit slightly differently than Horizon Forbidden West. Death Stranding collaborated with Horizon Zero Dawn, so it would make sense to see an Easter Egg in the sequel as well.
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Unfortunately, Conan is not truly in Horizon Forbidden West, even though holograms fit into this game. He would be perfect in a world full of weird cave people who are afraid of robots.
5 Aloy Is A Planeteer
Gaia is a key component to the plot of Horizon Forbidden West. Aloy needs to find this AI to regenerate Earth. Therefore, technically, this would make Aloy a Planeteer from the Captain Planet cartoon. Think about it – that series was about saving the world through environmental causes. Their guide was a mystic named Gaia who looks and sounds a little like Gaia in this game.
It’s hard to imagine someone on staff wasn’t inspired by Captain Planet when cooking up Gaia’s design. Since Aloy has red hair, it would be fun to assume she is an ancestor of the fire-wielding Planeteer, Wheeler.
4 The Kilika Beasts Return
Players should make it to Plainsong about a third of the way into Horizon Forbidden West. The village’s structure as well as the color choices on the outfits are reminiscent of designs from Final Fantasy 10. The Kilika Beasts were one of the Blitzball teams in the game. That’s where the joke comes into play.
Aloy is a character that doesn’t show much emotion throughout most of the adventure other than annoyance and anger. It is funny then to see her get excited in this meme about Blitzball.
3 Gotta Override ‘Em All
Horizon Forbidden West and the Pokemon series have a bit in common. Aloy can’t capture the robotic beasts of her world and use them to battle. However, she can hack into one at a time and ride them. Mounts are essential to getting around.
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As Horizon Forbidden West is full of Easter Eggs from other games, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine a Poke Ball-like object thrown in as a wink. It would be interesting to see a more monster-catching mechanic thrown into the sequel. Maybe that would be going too far into Pokemon territory.
2 Attack Of The Clones
Hades was a big part of the first game. In the sequel, the mad AI returns but only for a brief few scenes. One of them is in the beginning wherein Aloy must check out one of its towers. The very top looks like something out of Star Wars. That is why the Darth Vader hologram works well for this meme.
Aloy is also a clone, making it more fitting for the Empire to be behind everything. As there are space beings introduced later, the Far Zeniths, who is to say they’re also not agents of the Empire?
1 Horizon: Forbidden T-Pose
Horizon Forbidden West is relatively glitch-free. The performance is solid as far as the frame rate and loads go, and the game looks stunning too. In fact, the visuals are one of its best features. However, Horizon Forbidden West does have some late-game issues.
One of them involves glitching out during the last phase of boss fights. This T-Pose was triggered when Photo Mode was activated during Eric’s boss fight. Afterward, Aloy went into that awkward position. It was and still is, very odd to see.
Horizon Forbidden Westwas released on February 18, 2022 and is available on PS4 and PS5.
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