After their meeting in Frozen Wilds, I never expected to see Gildun again — but when he appeared again in the first DLC for Horizon Forbidden West, The Burning Shores, what happened shocked even me.
Horizon Forbidden West follows Aloy, the outcast hero of the original Horizon Zero Down, from her home in what we know today as Colorado to what we know today as California, tracking down an existential crisis that threatens all life, everywhere. In the respite between apocalypses, Aloy finds a note from Gildun talking about a delve down south, in the Burning Shores. Aloy feels she has no choice but to follow her man down south.
Gildun’s tribe, the Oseram, has been delving into the mysteries of ancient technologies around the ruins of a Jurassic Park-themed amusement part (“Pangaea Park”). The mystery of what happened to these Oseram delvers threads throughout the expansion, but one question is always on Aloy’s mind: What happened to Gildun?
I don’t want to get into too many spoilers, but after many adventures, she finally reunites with Gildun. He’d fallen overboard on his trip down to the Burning Shores, but nothing can dampen an Oseram’s love for the delve, and once he’d washed up on shore, he immediately set out to reunite with the rest of his expedition — when he is sidetracked by underground treasure, which sets up the legendary reunion of the two lovers.
I’m reading all over everyplace that Burning Shores is controversial, somehow, but Aloy and Gildun’s love is true and pure. Sure, I get it — she’s a Nora outcast, and Gildun is a renowned celebrity among the Oseram and everyone else who has ever heard his adventures. It’s a class thing. But love will always win out.
I can’t wait to play through their adventures in Horizon 3, whenever that might come out. Aloy has the brawn, but it’s going to take a Delver’s instincts to take on an interstellar threat.
Seriously, I loved seeing Gildun here, and now that he has joined Aloy’s team, I genuinely look forward to seeing him in the next game.
I don’t have that DLC, but I have the game because it came bundled with my PS5. I played it for a few hours, and was frankly flabbergasted by the graphics. I didn’t upgrade from a PS3 to a PS4 because the increase in fidelity seemed very incremental. However, if you wait ten years to buy a new system, you do notice a real difference 🙂
I mean yes, my PC does put out very nice graphics in newer games. I spent a fair bit of time gawking at stuff in some of them for sure. But Horizon on a giant TV screen was somehow really next level feeling.
The game itself also seems like something I could really get lost in if I had enough time to really engage with all the systems, but not a great game to dip into for a one or two hour session.
My whole family plays Horizon. My son and I had a marathon where we both played through the DLC on our respective PlayStations, then after I went back and started working on the side missions, like the Gildun one. I have the PSVR2 tie-in as well, Horizon: Call of the Mountain. It’s… pretty nice. Being able to look around and see the world is pretty much incredible. I need to finish that one of these days. It was cool seeing Aloy as just another NPC in the world.
It’s just a really beautiful game.