Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds is an expansion pack for the 2017 action role-playing video game Horizon Zero Dawn, developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The expansion is set concurrently with the main campaign, and follows Aloy as she travels to the homelands of the nomadic Banuk tribe in the Cut, a post-apocalyptic version of Yellowstone National Park. There, she investigates a mysterious entity known as the Daemon, which is corrupting the region's animal-like machines and making them more aggressive. Integrated into the base game, the expansion raises the player level and introduces a new skill tree, weapons, and a specialised economy to purchase gear from the Banuk. Combat requires aggressive tactics to defeat the new Daemonic machine variants and the stationary Control Towers. Development focused on the culture of the Banuk tribe and drew geographical inspiration from Yellowstone. Guerrilla upgraded their proprietary Decima engine to feature a dynamic snow deformation system where snow compresses and forms trails, interactive water rendering, and an advanced 3D cloud rendering system. The studio also updated its motion capture technology to produce more realistic character animations. The new machine species were designed with erratic attack patterns to challenge established player strategies. The Frozen Wilds is the sole expansion for Zero Dawn and launched for PlayStation 4 on 7 November 2017. It was later bundled with the base game for Windows in August 2020 as part of the Complete Edition, followed by a PlayStation 5 and Windows remaster in October 2024. The Frozen Wilds received generally favourable reviews. Critics praised its visual design, increased combat challenge, and technical enhancements, though the central narrative drew a more divided response. It was the fourth most-downloaded PlayStation 4 add-on of 2017.
Gameplay
Building upon the action role-playing mechanics of Horizon Zero Dawn (2017), The Frozen Wilds is a single-player experience that adds a new region to the existing open world where the player controls Aloy as she travels back and forth between the two areas. Guerrilla tailored the expansion for players who have reached at least level 30 in the base game and it increases the maximum player level from 50 to 60. Exploration revolves around the culture of the Banuk, a tribe of survivalists; Aloy participates in their trials and combat challenges to eventually compete for the position of chieftain. A fourth branch added to the skill tree introduces quality-of-life abilities focused on inventory management and mounted traversal of machines. The region also introduces new iterations of base-game side activities, including a new fortified enemy outpost, an environmental navigation puzzle, and an explorable ruin, alongside new lore-based collectibles. The expansion introduces a specialised economy centred on a rare crystalline resource used to trade for high-tier Banuk gear. This includes new weapons and Banuk-variant bows. The player can obtain new outfits and unlock the ability to upgrade Aloy's melee spear with modification slots. Daemonic machines are more formidable than the machines in the base game. They are corrupted variants that have more health, increased elemental resistances, and are immune to Aloy's ability to hack them. The expansion also introduces three new machine species: the Scorcher, Frostclaw, and Fireclaw. Control Towers, which are stationary devices that emit pulses to heal hostile machines, act as environmental hazards during combat and disable allied machines the player has hacked. The expansion features a difficulty spike from the base game, with encounters that emphasise using the new Banuk arsenal. It uses the dynamic, hidden dialogue system established in the base game, which adapts to the player's overall progression. Depending on whether a player plays The Frozen Wilds before, during, or after the events of the base game, Aloy's dialogue in both the expansion and Zero Dawn is adjusted to reflect her current understanding of the world's lore.
Synopsis
Setting The Frozen Wilds takes place in the Cut, a snow-covered mountainous region located beyond the northern edges of Zero Dawn's main map. It corresponds to a post-apocalyptic version of Yellowstone National Park. The region is predominantly inhabited by the Banuk, a nomadic tribe who are first encountered in the base game, and consist of survivalists and shamans who revere the blue light of the machines. The most prominent feature of the Cut is an active volcano known as Thunder's Drum. The narrative takes place concurrently with the events of Zero Dawn. It follows Aloy as she investigates a mysterious entity known as the Daemon. This entity has begun corrupting the region's machines to make them more aggressive and resilient, and has constructed stationary Control Towers that emit pulses of healing energy to aid hostile machines.
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