Thought bubble

[yvannairie]

Playing through Forbidden West is making me think about my extremely complicated Transformers crossover I had for the previous game, and how I want to continue it into this game because Aloy's Adventures With Her Big Metal Friends was just so good and thematically fitting for what was going on with her in Zero Dawn, and is turning out to be... thematically complementary to what has so far been going on in Forbidden West.

I would like to write down the outline for the questline involving the Autobots and their base, because I do have it planned out in quite a lot of detail -- interestingly a lot of the quest design that I was injecting into Zero Dawn using that AU shows up natively in Forbidden West, which validates to me that I've got a pretty good read on Guerilla's game design :D Very delightful when your AU turns out to be mechanically consistent with the rest of the series.

Comments

[sexytronians]

Ooh! Combining two things I also like there! :D
I’d be excited to see what you make with this idea.

Also I have a Thought but it’s Forbidden West spoilers so I won’t say it unless you’re okay with them. XP

[yvannairie]

I'm currently playing through Forbidden West, so I'll hold you to that once I clear the main plot :D whatever I do is gonna build on the AU for Zero Dawn just because there's something very poetic about how Forbidden West starts with Aloy alienated from everyone, including the literal aliens, in her life XD

[sexytronians]

Oh cool! :D

[yvannairie]

Okay! I finished Forbidden West, and now I wanna hear your spoiler thought, if only to see if we're going in the same direction with it.

[sexytronians]

Uh. Having checked the plot page for Forbidden West my idea of Unicron being the planet killing thing that destroyed Far Zenith’s colony just got tanked. XP

…because I forgot what the Wikipedia page said about the ending evidently. Which is embarrassing. I thought it was more ambiguous than Nemesis existing.

(I plan to play the game if I ever get a PS5 but that won’t be for a while so I’m spoiling the story for myself. Given my memory issues I’ll forget the whole story by then anyway.)

But I’d like to hear your thoughts still!

[yvannairie]

I played HFB on a PS4 and outside of a couple of shippables and a little texture pop-in when traveling, it ran completely fine. I'm like six years minimum away from buying a PS5 anyway :'D

Also, I don't have a lot of developed thoughts yet, other than how the status quo of the Autobots changes at the beginning of the game. I mentioned that this is a continuation of an existing crossover, which ended with Team Prime moving into the CYAN facility in the Cut, and being sort of... a proxy family for Aloy, who was in the first game really uncomfortable being around other humans. I thought the way Aloy is constantly talked about like she's somehow more "of the machines" than any of the tribes made it really fun that her closest companions are also machines, if very different ones XD

By the time Zero Dawn takes place, the Autobots have been hiding out on Earth for about thirty years, initially with the blessing of GAIA who agreed to a non-interference clause with the humans with Optimus, and provided his team with machine schematics so they could change their alt-modes to match to better hide from humans and survey Earth. (Earth is still Unicron, in this. This may become relevant later, I haven't decided) Optimus was actually quite good friends with GAIA, and was incredibly distraught when she died, not understanding why she essentially committed suicide. Their questline deals with the Decepticons arriving on Earth, and it becoming apparent that Earth is going to be the stage where the final confrontation is had.

During the timeskip, Optimus scrambled the Autobots to also help with the search for a backup, but some time during the six months, the team suddenly goes radio silent -- first Optimus goes missing, and then the rest of the team abandons their base without leaving any note, so Aloy is also dealing with the stress of what is essentially her only family going missing. I've decided that the reason they went to ground was an Ark scout ship with Jazz, Prowl, Perceptor and a few others arriving, and Jazz immediately locking everything down until Optimus is found for reasons that the rest of the team isn't quite sure of.

Once Aloy reacher No Man's Land, she's approached by Perceptor (his alt form is a Burrower, so he pops out of the ground like "hello. You must be Aloy *dives underground to avoid getting an arrow in the optic, then pops back up* oh, excuse me. I didn't mean to startle you") to show her where their new base is. She helps solve a minor dispute between the Wreckers and Jazz, and from thereon all the Autobots that were her companions become available as special mounts -- because they agree it's safe to go scouting accompanied by her, since nobody blinks twice at a docile machine travelling with Aloy Machine Tamer :D

That's about as far as I've gotten. I've got the alt forms of Team Prime and a few of the newcomers worked out, but no ideas on what the Autobot questline actually entails. I want it to build on the ending of the previous game's questline, where they stopped Megatron from being able to activate a space bridge to bring his army to Earth, forcing them to take the slow route.

[sexytronians]

I didn’t even realise it was on PS4! As soon as it’s not massively expensive I may look into getting it sooner than I thought.

Oh gosh I love this! Cybertronian’s with robot dinosaur/megafauna alts is such an awesome concept. Also the Autobots as Aloy’s proxy family is a nice idea.

That scene with Perceptor is hilarious and I can just imagine it lol.

Would the Decepticons choose the alts of the Faro plague robots? Or the robot creatures made by GAIA?

[yvannairie]

Some of them do! Knockout is a Sawtooth, Breakdown is a Frostclaw, Starscream is a Stormbird and Shockwave is a Rockbreaker. Megatron is a unique flying dragon machine reminiscent of Prime Predaking -- clearly based on GAIA machines but clearly too alien to be one of them. Just like how the Autobots are hiding out amongst GAIA's machines for safety, so are the Decepticons while they're scouting the planet out. I think the plot twist towards the end of the HFB Autobot questline is that Soundwave has reformatted into a Sunwing, and has been spying on them and their base gets located and attacked. (Also some machines that make great alts just don't strike me as particularly Autobot -- like, I can't really see Slitherfangs as anything but a 'Con machine, y'know?)

Come HFB, the new Autobots get alt forms based on the new machines, but a lot of the new Decepticons have wholly new and completely alien alt forms that fall more visually in line with the Faro/Far Zenith machines. Lots of sort of... buggy, multi-limbed, alien alts... but also just straight-up hovertanks, too. Some 'Cons keep their machine alts for vanity, but in HZD Aloy didn't fight any of the Decepticons while they're in root form, so during the rematches in HFB, they give up fighting in alt b/c Aloy is a proven threat now.

I'm not entirely sure what to do about mecha whose alts are machines that are not in the second game. Probably what I'll do is simply ignore it and be like "sure there are Sawtooths and Tramplers in the West!! We just never see them :)"