Horizon Forbidden West May Have Paved The Way For a Cheesy Twist in Horizon 3

Horizon Forbidden West flipped the script of its predecessor in some big ways, but few were as game-changing as the introduction of Beta. After being set up as a Messiah-like figure in Horizon Zero Dawn, Aloy’s discovery of a second clone of Elisabet Sobek – and one with a drastically different personality, despite her identical appearance – threw a wrench in both her plans and her self-identity. Bonding with and accepting Beta as a sister and independent person became central to Aloy’s character arc in Horizon Forbidden West.

Like Aloy, Beta is being set up to play a significant role in Horizon 3. However, there are a number of common tropes and cliches associated with clones and twins that the long-awaited sequel is now primed to fall into. While this would not be intrinsically bad, Horizon 3 needs to tread carefully if it doesn’t want to come off as overly cheesy.

Tropes, Cliches, and Horizon Forbidden West

How Horizon Forbidden West Uses Tropes to Define Aloy and Beta’s Relationship

Considering both Aloy and Beta are clones of Elisabet in Horizon Forbidden West, many tropes pertaining to clones appear in their story. That said, by the end of Horizon Forbidden West, the bond between the two women becomes closer to a sibling relationship. This means the dynamic duo pull not only from clone tropes, but from ones about twins as well.

TV Tropes, a volunteer-run wiki that catalogs thousands of common tropes across media, lists plenty of these narrative devices that appear in Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West. For example, both sisters experience Clone Angst by living in Elisabet’s shadow, and Beta’s treatment by Far Zenith is a textbook example of Clones Are People, Too. Aloy and Beta in Horizon Forbidden West are Polar Opposite Twins in many ways, but they also demonstrate Superior Twin Teamwork when they put their minds together, as they did in the GEMINI cauldron and when facing down Far Zenith.

Horizon 3 Probably Won’t Let Both Aloy and Beta Survive

Like its predecessors, plenty of tropes will appear in Horizon 3 as well, but Beta’s existence has paved the path towards some tropes that teeter on the precipice of cliche. As the inheritor of Elisabet’s DNA and mission, Aloy has been set up as a Messianic Archetype – a role she now shares in many ways with Beta. Unfortunately, like the Biblical figure it is named after, this trope almost always ends with a heroic sacrifice. Elisabet herself even fulfilled this archetype by the sealing of the Zero Dawn facility, where GAIA and its subordinate functions like HEPHAESTUS were built in the history of Horizon‘s Earth, dooming herself in the process.

However, now that there are two of them, Horizon 3 has set itself up to potentially only lose one of the siblings. One way this could happen is by the clones pulling a Twin Switch that would lead to Beta’s death through a case of mistaken identity. While this could be done with dramatic irony, it could also be presented in a way where even the players think Aloy dies, creating a Fake-Out Twist.

The other option is that Aloy, the more physically capable twin, sacrifices her life for the mission, or to save Beta. This would create a Weaker Twin Saves the Day situation, allowing Beta to carry on the legacy of both Elisabet and Aloy into a new era beyond Horizon 3.

Technically speaking, Aloy and Beta could both survive Horizon 3 – or worse yet, they could both die. That being said, the setup of the two clones of Elisabet is practically begging to create an Angsty Surviving Twin. Guerrilla Games will need to be careful when evoking these tropes to not become cliche, lest they evoke eyerolls instead of gasps and tears when and if this happens.

Horizon Forbidden West

Systems

9/10

Released

February 18, 2022

ESRB

T for Teen: Blood, Language, Use of Alcohol, Violence

Engine

Decima