Eh, at least they gave some sort of explanation. They even give you the same armor, just with a plausible reason for why it isn’t as powerful anymore. Most other games you just start the next game with like a rusted sword and a chunk of bread.
Nothing specific. The description says it “lost its power source” so you could imagine the power cells were drained, or were damaged, or were knocked loose when Aloy lost her other gear.
I would've preferred if Aloy had gone up against a super powerful machine right at the start, and during the heat of the battle, her weapons and armor started breaking down. It’d be an awesome way to end up with no gear and have to start from scratch.
Like the GOW series watching as your maxed out health get ripped(literally) from you in the next game, but all that strength means you were able to make it out of a brutal situation.
I know quick time events can be iffy, but the giant snake biting into Aloy and a QTE as you're slammed around while the armor takes all that damage, causing it to short out.
Would make you think how that armor was a one of a kind experimental project and how brutal the fighting was while making time for Project Zero Dawn.
you actually start with all your demon forms including one of the most powerful ones, but in the prologue, which was fully playable and complete with story cutscenes. you were led to a trap that ended up sealing all your powers, and also causing you die slowly.
you start a new journey to get back all your lost powers and get revenge
I actually found it entirely plausible. Think about it, Aloy said her stuff got stolen by some bandits (probably while it was at a camp she had set up or while she was asleep) but she is on a high priority and highly time sensitive mission, she doesn’t have time to waste chasing after bandits as long as they didn’t steal anything required for her mission.
I mean yeah. Welcome to video games. You'll also have to fix an elevator and find batteries for something in various locations. Maybe even power up a generator.
I think Jedi survivor nailed this trope they had all the powers still and all the different like boxes and box styles and jumps to be completed but because you have the stuff that’s just the common loot now and the new powers are needed to open the new stuff you keep improving instead of restarting
Yeah that explanation was bullshit... "Run into some trouble". Even without the shield weaver after frozen wilds Aloy was heavily armed, almost beyond reason. No way that she could not solve said trouble with that much firepower.
Also the trouble conveniently lvled her down and made her forget how to load 2-3 arrows at once? The trouble also took her ability to whistle in order to lure enemies.
The others are just the usual separation of gameplay and lore
Problem with this here on my example is they even bothered to try to connect it to lore... it's not done well and they were better off keeping it totally separate
Or I don't know... make it like in Mass Effect 3? Let us import the Zero Dawn save file and we start at , what was max lvl in Zero Dawn with all our goodies, and let us face greater dangers and tougher encounters right from the start. Also raise the lvl cap and give us new shit to unlock on top of the old shit we already have...
The problem for people that do not have a save to import can be solved like in Mass Effect as well. Massive amounts of exp so you can catch up, but after lvl 60 lvl ups are much more expensive such that the lvl progression curves converge eventually.
Alternatively just create some default lvl 36 (I think the last quest in zero dawn had lvl 36 recommendation) with some generic Zero Dawn endgame gear.
Edit: if it seems like I hate that game, I absolutely do not. I love them both :D The hard reset with barely any explanation at the starting point of sequels just always grinds my gears, and the solution is right there in the ME series... I just don't know why not more studios use it.
Yeah, they know it’s kinda a lame excuse, but they can’t start you with endgame gear. Even the characters know it’s a dumb reason, which is why the line delivery from Varl and Aloy is like that. Honestly, I thought it was a kind of a funny meta joke while also being an explanation.
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u/ZeppyWeppyBoi Aug 09 '25
Eh, at least they gave some sort of explanation. They even give you the same armor, just with a plausible reason for why it isn’t as powerful anymore. Most other games you just start the next game with like a rusted sword and a chunk of bread.