The Timeline of Horizon: Forbidden West and the Hidden Clue to Horizon 3

Some will call me mad. Others, a genius. Only time will tell.

Join me on this journey into the depths of Horizon lore, where we divine the past, present and future with every scrap of data and dialogue we can can find, and discover for the first time the mistake that may pin Horizon 3 to the timeline.

00:00 Introduction
00:39 SPOILER WARNING
00:58 The Discovery
01:30 Forbidden West recap
02:39 The Space/Time-Line
05:10 The Extinction Signal
07:18 Zero Dawn and Forbidden West
10:25 The Odyssey
12:19 Beta
14:18 Nemesis
15:30 GAIA's Mistake
19:01 SUMMARY
21:11 Outro

#HorizonForbiddenWest #HorizonZeroDawn #Horizon

[MangledPork]

ERROR: At 13:56 I say "the summer of 3034" and point at 3041. BOTH are wrong. I meant the summer of 3036, where the Zenith line crosses the end of the Extinction Signal line.

[lochness]

Dude, you were exactly right about the date Nemesis sent the signal. Burning Shores proved you right. Walter Londra wrote a datapoint from the 16nth of January 3012, which stated that everything that Nemesis did occurred within 72 hours. Meaning it escaped on January 13nth that year, and must’ve sent the signal on the date you calculated seeing as it still fits in the timeframe the game has officially made cannon

[MirorRflction]

This is an S class theory right here, fantastic work. You know a sci-fi story is doing something right when the theorists need to break out a Spacetime Diagram to best make sense of the timeline

[Garsemor]

That last twist is the greatest reveal to top it all off.

[NomiOwO]

Okay but the fact we will face nemesis without Varl makes me so sad. I miss him

[MrTmm]

18:10 love how you used Alva in the background when you were talking about how they figured no one would be crazy enough to dig as much as you did and you won a cookie… very appropriate with how excited she gets upon learning more legacy!

[evilshrimpy]

It's always been my assumption that Nemesis will arrive midway through the next game, to be honest— The first part of the game will be about trying to wrangle Hephaestus, or to rig some kind of replacement. I found the idea of Hephaestus willingly coming home to Gaia appealling even if it only agreed to do so because the alternative would be to deal with Nemesis on its own. It would make for a good turning point for the plot, at least.

[Akodta]

As a lore nerd, who hasn't played Forbidden West and Just finished my first Zero Dawn play through, I salute you. A lore nerd no more, I grant you the rank of Scholar.

[hannibalmoriarty]

I played this game for just over 100 hours to complete every thing I could find to do and get the platinum, honestly loved it. I enjoyed zero dawn as a game but loved forbidden west as an experience. Really hope it gets some dlc to give us more reason to play between now and the next main installment.

And really enjoyed the presentation of this video. Was fun to visually and mentally relive parts of the adventure and see it put together

[ShawnTheDriver]

*spoiler alert*


I’m gonna laugh if Nemesis shows up and doesn’t do anything.

“Yo I’m here to kill those Far Zenith mofos.”
so um… we kinda did that already…😅”
“Word? Bet. Well I’m out, see y’all later. Sorry about the extinction signal, it wasn’t personal.”

[shmookins]

Very well done!
I just wish Gaia would talk post game. Even if it was recycling the previous conversations.
Can't wait for the big finale!

[lazyidiotofthemonth]

1. Nemesis likely had to build the capacity to travel, and likely is sending a reduced form of itself.
2. Its entirely possible the Zeniths were able to slip away sooner and took Nemesis time to realize they had departed.
3. The fact that the Zeniths were no run down and destroy suggest no space craft existed to chase them in.
4. It is entirely possible Humans left behind sent the signal to kill those that abandoned them.
5. Beta does seem slightly smaller and definitely younger, so 15-16 is a good guess for her age physically, the question on whether they could accelerate her growth so she would be more useful to them is an open question.

[bellamaria]

Interesting note for those listening around the 9-10:00 minute mark regarding the jokes around Aloy's birthday. I believe the Nora don't celebrate birthdays based on who was born, but around the Mother's themselves, and spend the entire day with their Mother whether dead or alive. This means, Aloy probably hasn't had a birthday at all as she never knew who her Mother was and Rost most likely didn't celebrate with her for the sake of it. Honestly, I'd love to see her friends get together in the next game, as Erend suggested and throw her a surprise birthday party.

[gnaskar]

Time dilation at 0.297 c is 4.725%. Enough to change her age by about 8 months.

[captaindapper]

My wife and I were wondering about Beta's age too and came to the same conclusion of the Zeniths having ordered Beta's creation when seeing the result of the extinction signal. I was already doing the math for that anyway so I threw in relativity, and it only changes Beta's (subjective) age by like 6 or so months.

[RandomSideQuest]

This was very thought provoking, and well explained. With the information we have at the moment I think this is a solid estimation. Always like to hear what other people are diving into when it comes to the lore, nice work 😁.Being that you haven't played the games, feel free to reach out if you are feeling like bouncing some ideas off someone who has spent entirely too much time in this universe 😅

[ianmills]

One other possibility to factor in.
Nemesis is potentially in two places. Primary core still in Sirius, and an exact coppy traveling to earth only a few months after the odysy making it both able to follow the zeniths and be in position to receive the confirmation signal.

[firstdondiego]

You know what's funny to me is, even though I didn't dig into the timeline myself when I saw that conversation between a Aloy and Gaia and heard those times, I thought it sounded funny. Like something seemed off about it. But I just simply chalked it up to that there's going to be more information introduced that we don't know about yet.

Also to mention, I know it's not a factor for the information you gave here but when the zeniths arrived to Earth it probably didn't take them long to get set up. It probably even took seconds because do you remember they have fabrication technology that can produce anything they want instantly.

[theexurian]

I was making a timeline in my head the first week or so of all the events. This did a spectacular job of outlining it, and I think you give great evidence for your theory. We'll have to wait and see if any DLCs contradict what it, but it's very solid nonetheless. Hoping RSQ sees this!

Also, I LOVE you calling it calling Vulcan! It could just be the "Vulcan Protocol/Project", but it would be interesting to have maybe Beta and Sylens work on making a replacement subfunction called such. I mean, outside anything drastic, having HEPH under wraps of Gaia would mean the end of the franchise past Horizon 3...

[Mr.shadowfreddy]

This kind of games people just think it’s just a normal game and there’s no lore into it but when you try to find lore and secrets it just yeets you into a big big rabbit hole