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    Horizon Zero Dawn

    Game » consists of 7 releases. Released Feb 28, 2017

    Explore a lush, post-apocalyptic world inhabited by robotic beasts while uncovering secrets of the past.

    Did you know about the poems? (cool thing spoiler)

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    Kierkegaard

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    If you, like me, just spent the last three months slowly progressing through every iota of Horizon story and world, enjoying the narrative and the space immensely, or if you just want to know a cool thing, here you go:

    Every metal flower picked up can be clicked on in the menu to reveal a poem selected presumably by GAIA to bring some natural wonder to the world, at least in computer code. They appear to all be classics, with harder flowers including long-form Thoreau and Whitman.

    This game has love in every moment, quest, and inch, and these poems, never hinted at and easily missable, are a great indication of why I love it.

    Anyone else discover these or, if you are just hearing about it, what do you think?

    Also, the vantages have full letters written out if clicked on, about twenty pages of text that tell a tragic story of an Indian-American family and are, again, completely missable. The Banuk figures all have stories too. This game, man.

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    neurotic_ape

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    #2  Edited By neurotic_ape

    I don't believe they're from GAIA, since GAIA's been offline for nearly 20 years (so, not actively at least, certainly not the act of a conscious decision). Instead I believe, because it says Code Fragment,... i believe it's just a declaration in the code left behind by Elisabet or perhaps that Artistic Alpha lady responsible for cataloging such things in the Zero Dawn system (I only recall she had an name that sounded Chinese to me and her voices had an accent I'd call Chinese as well).

    It's possible they're bits of poetry GAIA created during exercises with Elisabet too. But I really think they're very likely legitimate poems and haikus we could find written today. The flowers are the systems attempt to continue to 'seed' knowledge. Or it's jsut a happy by-product/easter-egg by the programmers of Zero Dawn.

    There really is a lot that went into the game's collectibles and data-points. I just finished the game today, and I am going through and reading the ones I was too impatient to read when found. (sometimes I was in a reading mood others not). It really fleshes out the world in the best way possible. Instead of explaining you have to actively seek out this information and actively spend time reading. Listening is too passive. It's a welcome break.

    I only wish I could read it through an app.

    There's a lot. And it's an outstanding method to present the player, who seeks it, with more information. Brilliant.

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    Kierkegaard

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    @neurotic_ape:

    Possibly, although the metal flower guy does say they came up at the same time the machines started changing, which could be a passing salvo from her. Not sure we can know, but fun to speculate. And they do all seem to be directly from the archives of human poetry, though GAIA could have selected them.

    I really appreciate that attention to detail and consistency. Glad to hear you share that!

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