The 1,000-year timeline, therefore, would have only allowed around 600-ish ears between mass extinctions and humanity's re-emergence. If the lineage of the 13 Sun-Kings remained unbroken, that means at a minimum humans have been around in this setting for over 400 years (assuming a generational average of 31, and the 1st Sun-King settled Meridian as soon as he left his Cradle). The lineage of Meridian's Sun-King gives us a good benchmark to start. So that stretch of time cannot be trusted.įirst, let's check the length of time humans have been repopulating after their re-emergence. However, since this information comes from old, poorly-maintained technology in a story where a major element prominently features the corruptibility of machines and A.I., it's highly likely these timestamps are only accurate relative to the time they remained powered on, rather than an accurate benchmark for the timeline's progress. To support this length of time, the game gives us Operations Logs of computer programs that ran while humans were living in the Cradles, which have timestamps that indicate the year. The official length of time between the end of humans and Aloy's arrival, given to us in the game and repeated in the wiki is about 1,000 years. The cradled humans then emerged from their facilities knowing nothing of what came before, forming the current tribal layout that leads into the beginning of the game. Regions that were once deserts, for example, become flourishing river basins. During this time, the peaceful machines (ones patterned after animals and such) went to work repairing the environment, as per GAIA's programming. These cradles didn't simply house people, it incubated, birthed, and raised them too. To put it simply, hostile machines wipe out most of humanity (consuming much of Earth's biomass along with them), and the humans that survived locked themselves in safe places called Cradles. Many real-world locations are featured in a ruined state like any good post-apoc story. Horizon: Zero Dawn, if you never played it, is set in a recovering post-apocalyptic future version of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.

Where does horizon zero dawn take place