How to breathe underwater in Horizon Forbidden West: craft the Diving Mask

Horizon Forbidden West’s world is a large one, constructed to be explored over lengthy stretches of time. The huge, open wilderness is beautiful and overwhelming, giving gamers the possibility to roam freely round a number of the west coast’s most well-known pure websites and cities. There are towering sequoia forests, endemic to elements of Northern California, together with the desiccated Loss of life Valley and its ocean of sand. You’ll climb mountaintops and iconic American landmarks just like the Golden Gate Bridge. You’ll additionally swim lakes, caves, and oceans, which comprise one of many distinctive highlights of Forbidden West.

The best way these parts weave collectively finally makes the exploration facet of the sport stand out. “One of many first issues we mentioned once we began improvement was that we needed to focus extra on selection and density,” Mathijs de Jonge, director of Horizon Forbidden West, informed Polygon.

Swimming is a key a part of this: It’s lovely, and better of all, it’s completely seamless. Exterior of video games particularly devoted to swimming, I’ve usually skilled our bodies of water as gating mechanisms. Once I can swim, it’s typically with a restricted endurance bar — or it is likely to be on the again of a creature, like in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. In Forbidden West, there’s no operating round lakes to keep away from falling in, or tiptoeing round waterfalls. I leap the fuck in. There are brimming ecosystems in there, crumbling American landmarks, and tons of collectibles.

Although Aloy is initially restricted by holding her breath, there’s fortunately a Diving Masks instrument that enables her to breathe infinitely. Admittedly, swimming can really feel graceless earlier than discovering this instrument, as quests make Aloy navigate labyrinthian underwater passages. Stick it out and get that Diving Masks, and swimming turns into really liberating and thrilling. It turns the sport into certainly one of my all-time favorites for exploration.

After you have unlocked your base, and have spoken with GAIA, I might extremely advocate getting that Diving Masks as quickly as potential. Right here’s how one can.

[Ed. note: spoilers follow for certain Horizon Forbidden West story quests.]

How you can craft the Diving Masks for infinite underwater respiration

In an effort to craft the Diving Masks, you will have to have exited The Daunt, unlocked your base, and uploaded the GAIA kernel. Crafting the Diving Masks is an early a part of The Poseidon subordinate operate quest line known as “Sea of Sands.” When GAIA tells you to decide on which of the three subordinate capabilities you’d wish to pursue — Aether, Poseidon, or Demeter — choose Poseidon, and head to Las Vegas.

If you arrive, the map will present a big, yellow, round space. You’re on the lookout for a constructing that seems to be a pagoda, however has water spilling out of it. You’ll understand it’s appropriate as Aloy will name it a “Tower of Tears” when she sees it. The simplest strategy to find it’s to move to a excessive level, and seek for the constructing.

To get inside, there’s a grapple level on the sting of the primary ground, near the place the water is pouring out. You’ll encounter three NPCs who’ve been making an attempt to dive into the not too long ago flooded constructing. Communicate to Morlund, and he gives you the hunt to craft the Diving Masks.

Picture: Guerrilla Video games/Sony Interactive Leisure through Polygon

In an effort to craft the Diving Masks, you will have three objects:

• Compressed Air Capsule
• Machine Knee Cap
• Artificial Membrane

The Compressed Air Capsule is contained in the flooded elevator shaft that the three NPCs had been diving in. Dive in, swim downward, and harvest the Compressed Air Capsule from a protruding panel on the wall.

To acquire the opposite objects, activate the searching goal portion of the hunt line, and observe the cues to activate Aloy’s focus. The main target will reveal tracks that lead Aloy to a Bellowback and Leaplasher website. Bellowbacks can have Artificial Membranes; Leaplashers can have Machine Knee Caps. You could have to kill a number of to acquire the objects.

Afterwards, head again to the pagoda, converse with Morlund, and craft the Diving Masks on the workbench contained in the constructing. You’ll now have it completely, and it’ll activate immediately whenever you soar into the water — no have to equip it.

What makes swimming underwater so particular

Picture: Guerrilla Video games/Sony Interactive Leisure through Polygon

As in actual life, exploring underwater in Forbidden West feels expansive and free — in bigger our bodies of water, just like the lake (seemingly primarily based on Lake Mead) which gamers can first run into in The Daunt. At that time, you received’t have infinite underwater respiration. However when you unlock the Diving Masks, the choices broaden superbly — permitting gamers to free swim the whole thing of the big lake, swimming previous faculties of fish, and exploring the various secrets and techniques that lie in its depths. This is only one of many many hidden nooks that can turn out to be out there upon getting the Diving Masks.

This sense of underwater freedom is basically by design. The builders selected to not make fight underwater an choice, as an alternative giving gamers stealth choices within the type of tall kelp. “I assume it’s fairly comparable as on-ground motion; the mechanic itself must be responsive and it’s essential to really feel that you simply’re in management,” de Jonge mentioned. “Subsequent to that, the environment matter, and the participant wants choices to keep away from underwater fight with machines. We didn’t even try to develop that as participant motion is simply too restricted underneath water and machines are giant, quick, and lethal.”

[Warning: the following contains spoilers for late-game locations and machine types in Horizon Forbidden West.]

A number of the sport’s most cinematic moments occur when Aloy is underwater. You see a few of Las Vegas’s most well-known resorts, imagined in a post-post-apocalyptic future that entails mild exhibits and holographics. That is the place Aloy first encounters one of many sport’s most deadly, intimidating enemies, the Tideripper, a Loch Ness Monster-inspired machine. It’s additionally the place gamers get to see how charming Burrowers are once they swim. The frustratingly bouncy entry-level enemies turn out to be otter-like underwater, chittering and winding round.

Picture: Guerrilla Video games/Sony Interactive Leisure through Polygon

Exploring underwater San Francisco, within the closing stretches of the principle quest, additionally really feel like a present. It’s haunting, seeing elements of the acquainted metropolis submerged — particularly because it’s a metropolis I’ve lived in. The post-apocalypse hit dwelling as I swam across the Ferry Constructing in its oceanic grave. These are only a few of my favourite recollections from my time in Forbidden West’s unimaginable underwater environments. My Diving Masks and I will likely be making many extra.