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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

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

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!

*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.” “Yeahhhhh 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.”

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.

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.

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

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.

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 😅

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.

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.

Wow. BRAVO, that's all i can say. As someone who has put more than 120 hours into horizon forbidden and has extensively collected all the world building pieces i must say this video was extremely satisfying to watch. I can't even grasp the amount of work you must've put into making this. Very well done.

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.

As someone who was a bit slow in trying to follow the whole timeline thingy, you helped out a tonne, thank you, and that last twist was on par with the Horizon game's twist

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...

Fantastic video! Really appreciated that graph illustration since it helped greatly with the presentation of the theory :) that end twist was also amazing LOL

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

Fun fact: I've never played either of the games myself (didn't get a PS4 when Zero Dawn came out, then decided to wait for a PS5, now can't get one of those at retail). But I've experienced pretty much all the lore both games have to offer through RU-vid videos, and I find this story more engaging than any major movie or series in recent memory. Fascinating work, and definitely looking forward to Horizon III. Seriously hoping with the acquisition of Apollo at the end of FW, Aloy and team are able to finally start fabricating some more, shall we say..."modern" weaponry (beyond the odd plasma cannon Aloy picks up from a fallen machine and lugs around until it's out of ammo). So maybe the third game becomes more like the original Turok: bow and arrows meet high-end sci-fi weaponry. More melee options using higher tech weaponry would also be amazing to see.

I appreciate the hell out of the effort this video took. I love Horizon's plot and hearing any speculation/analysis of it is so much fun. Well done!! Would love it if you made more.

Love this essay analysis direction for you mate. Extremely high quality stuff, great work.

An important thing I think you’ve missed in Beta’s datapoint is that it says that with the workarounds, Gaia should be able to stabilize the biosphere within a year. With what I think is a reasonable assumption that every action along that path gives the planet a bit more time, that means that the worst case scenario that Gaia predicts early on can be safely avoided. That pushes the upper bound on Nemesis’ arrival further put by at least a few months, and at most by a year or more. Aside from that oversight, absolutely excellent analysis and very solid presentation!

Hope this goes viral, great fun to have you back.

OH MY GOODNESS THIS IS SO GOOD. That was one incredible breakdown good sir. I’m 140 hours into HFW, I’ve platinum-ed Zero Dawn and now finally going down the rabbit hole of lore. This was just fantastic.

And here I thought I was the crazy tryna build up timelines for fandoms I love. Props to you (and others in the comments who added time dilation and other calculations) for this. Needless to say, I'm probably gonna use this video as a reference/base for my theories and headcanons for the Horizon world. Cheers, mate!

Fascinating! Thank you for taking the time to do this!

I’m glad you acknowledged time dilation - that was the first thing I thought of when they started mentioning relativistic speeds.

I salut to you, sir, this is a tremendous work and story telling of yours by considering so many factors and information, while still making it more than solidly comprehensive for everyone. Thanks a lot for this vid! Helped me a lot more to understand the dimension of this game (and probably the next one)

Great job, Bentham. Your analytical skills are excellent!

Aloy’s word…. You are making my head spin 😂. Great video thank you for sharing your knowledge!

Awesome work man. Thank you for presenting your timeline on this and it was a pleasure watching you plot it all out. Let's revisit this video post the 3rd game and see how spot on or wrong you were. I can't wait for that day now.

Wow amazing work. There are some things in the game that help with the Zeniths base time. The nearby side quest mention the island where Zenith base, just recently lit up and arriving with a short span of time with the shuttle seen launching and reentering earth . There is a large shield wall, that reminds me of the end of map barriers from ARK survival evolve, but I digress. Then they deployed Machine lures not too long ago. It seem they only been on Earth for a short time. Overall the Horizon lore is really interesting.

This is amazing! Cheers!

This is so well thought out and presented, amazing work!

Glad to see you back with such a great video!

Wow, excellent work. I wouldn't be surprised if you're spot-on with your Nemesis prediction.

I love graphs, and I must say I absolutely love the graph you made to show the timeline of Horizon in such a clear and simple way. Truly brilliant research and graph making.

Well done mate. This is great fun to watch and very professional!

This is outstanding work, just brilliant. The twist at the end is worthy of the Horizon writers themselves. If you love lore you really should play both games, though. There is a huge amount of fascinating stuff about the world and history entirely unconnected with the main story. Lots more potential rabbit holes to go down! I hope we get to see more lore videos from you, whether or not you end up playing.

I was glad to see you mentioned time dilation. At the speeds in question, if the handy time dilation calculator I found online is accurate, it looks like a journey at 1/3rd the speed of light would shave off a little less than two years from the Zeniths' subjective journey time, not enough to significantly impact the figures for Beta.

This was an amazing video. Well done! Very informative, and even if you're not completely accurate, it's very interesting to see. Your first lore video and for me, this is the first of your videos I've seen. You just got yourself a new subscriber because honestly this is one of the best information videos I've seen about a games world and timeline.

Incredible and detailed breakdown! When I played through the dialog with Gaia I did something similar on graph paper but nowhere near as detailed but came to a similar conclusion regarding Nemesis and it makes a lot of sense when you take into consideration both the in game timeframes as well as the elapsed time between the HZD and HFW.

I wonder how they would possibly top the Horus boss fight of "Burning Shores" in the 3rd game...

This is crazy brilliant. I loved this game it is beautiful to look at, amazing to play, but now due to this crazy analysis, you've added yet another layer of complexity to game. I am totally impressed with the time graph and the analysis. It would be interesting to hear from the developers.

That’s an awesome work you put together here! Thank you, and congratulations !!!

Bentham you absolute mad lad, I didn't expect this from you! Glad to know you're a Horizon fan too!

lmao now I gotta watch a Let's Play of Horizon: Forbidden West, this sounds crazy fun

Idk if you’re right or wrong. But your neurotic deep dive into this subject is hella cool and got a sub from me. If you approach everything you do with this kind of zeal and dedication I definitely want to be around to see what you scour thru next.

This video only came up for me recently. This is the first video of yours i've seen. I really love the way this was put together. Nice one.

Well done . Was a pleasure to watch this video.

I love horizon because it’s not a frost person shooter, and it’s not a zombie game it’s an adventure into the unknown it’s a survival, it’s a grow game in the character and it feels that way Skyrim and others like it just feel what do I do now horizon gives direction. And I like it.

NGL The fact that you made this video without playing the game threw me for quite the loop. Please play this series. They are a wonder to be held.

I'm not sure I've ever been so interested in a timeline. Good job.

You did an amazing job with this video! Color me impressed... Kudos to you!

Thank you for making this video! It was a very thoughtful and clear summary of the timeline thus far. I feel your assumptions were fairly conservative and certainly reasonable. It seems to me that the next installment would logically pick up just before the arrival of Nemesis, with some final preparations (and lots of fighting Hephaestus' machines) before a mid-game arrival. I can't possibly imagine what might happen in the second half of the game, though. One possibility is that because Nemesis is primarily obsessed over killing Far Zenith, it somewhat relents when it discovers that Far Zenith is already dead (unlikely as that is). Another possibility is that the protagonists trick Nemesis into thinking Far Zenith is still alive by launching the Odyssey on an escape trajectory, thus luring Nemesis away from Earth and towards a trap that has been set on board the Odyssey (I mainly suggest this because I think it would be really cool to explore a spaceship in the game).

Some helpful other informative: 1. Tilda mentions that their spacecraft was barely fit for flight when they departed. Presumably this means Nemesis had no other craft on the Zenith colony to use and would have had to build one. Also the Zeniths may have needed to stop for repairs/supplies at some point early in the journey. 2. If Nemesis can get to Earth more than twice as fast as the Zeniths do, it has used their collective knowledge to not only steal but also improve upon their technology. That device Sylens made will most likely not work against it anymore, since it created it. 3. Sylens could also be a Zenith if his immortal theory is true (That faceless Peter guy at the beginning of the game could be him). Nemesis could know about this from their memories and be specifically targeting him more than anyone else. Hence why Sylens really wants to leave, but also might want revenge.

This is a great in-depth video, and I would definitely watch more of this type of content

This is so awesome... Gr8 work brother.. was not expecting the twist at the end..that came out of nowhere 😳😅😂

What a good content! I just started become a fan of this franchise when the first game was available for free n pre-ordered the 2nd as soon as it's available - that's how good the franchise was. This vid helps a lot to understand the timeline of the story; too much data points can be confusing to keep up😅

Jeez I really hope they have more than a year to catch/ally Hephaestus and prep for Nemesis. Hopefully they can integrate Zenith tech also. Idk, if only saving the world from nemesis was as simple as calling up the incoming swarm to say "we killed all the zeniths, and we know your beef was primarily with them so maybe keep on flying right past earth pretty please?"

Back after your warning and completing story!! Thank you for that.

Man you really put a lot of time and effort into this. Thanks

You are someone after my own heart. I spent over 50 years researching naval armor and how to punch holes in its as a hobby and had unbelievable good luck concerning getting information (the head of the US Navy Ballistics Computation Division at the US Naval Proving Ground during and after WWII retired and gave me all of his files since he thought -- probably correctly given what happened to US Army WWII files of this type -- that they might be thrown awat. So I had virtually EVERYTHING the US Navy knew about armor during WWII. I found, like you, that a major part of the puzzle, in this case the thick Class "A" side armor used in battleships, actually had not been evaluated as a stand-alone material, but just used a modified formula/database used for the soft, ductile Class "B" deck armor material. I had to find out Class "A" armor's rules from scratch, which took up most of my study and I finally solved it by developing a computer program through 70 versions. I am very stubborn and like such challenges. So, it seems, do you.

What I really like about this analysis is that it's of the timeline the writers might have come up with and not of what may or may not have happened in-game. I find it to be a very compelling line of reasoning on that basis :-)

Really cool vid man, wish I had the patience to do projects like this-so illuminating and interesting!

Amazing video !!!! I really love it 💜💜💜 So many theories ahhhh ♡♡♡

You fail to take into consideration something rather relevant to your timeline, which is the amount of time the Zeniths would require to build their base. We saw their building capabilities first hand when Haphestos takes over the construction module and constructs a Slaughter Spine in less than 10 seconds, a project that otherwise takes a few minutes with it's prior construction capabilities in the cauldron facilities. Additionally, they are able to construct automated and self guided servitors that would have been able to connect and construct their facilities in a matter of a few hours. Additionally, they used existing ruins as a basis for their construction bones, which also reduces the necessary time for construction as well. They also clearly have programmable matter construction, which means everything can be built to any and all unique and prioritized specifications, as well as being able to seamlessly interconnect parts as they are introduced to the construction. They are considerably more advanced even by current modern standards, and may not even have required this, as they clearly have nano-bot construction capabilities for the weapons and suites they carry on their person.

Everything adds up. I do think the writers have some leeway with the arrival time of Nemesis, it can always go slower then predicted, taking its time to get to Earth.

Well done, this is really interesting I'll look forward to seeing future lore dives.

Awesome to see this graph, good work!

I'm watching this video 7 months after you released it, but bravo on the work you've done here! This is SO interesting! I'm just dying to know more about the Zeniths & how they developed their technology. I'm also extremely interested in learning more about Nemesis & what their/its existence has been like for hundreds of years. Assuming it's a single entity, is it insane? Just angry & spiteful? Is it housed in a physical object, or just like, a super-pissed Wi-Fi signal? I gotta know! Guerilla, please tell me this game series is at the very least planned to be a trilogy!

Lore video hype!!!

Thank you for this video! I was so curious about the timeline for this game and not even the WIKI goes into the specifics i needed in order to figure some of this out.

Fantastic video. Thanks for the hard work!

Time dilation isn't actually much of a factor at the speeds listed. You don't start getting dilation effects that really make a serious impact until you hit 80% c.

Extremely impressive!

Whew, that was deep. Nicely done.

wow that was a lot of work, thank you for putting in all that effort know we just need to wait and see how much you have right

Interesting deep dive. I love the lore in this game.

Tremendous work. I love lore (or back story) myself. Zero Dawn was in that respect pretty good. But I was less impressed or convinced by Forbidden West. Your timeline adds something to it, but I still feel that the first game was enough.

one of the best videos i have watched about horizon. Great job, and amazing speculations.

i really enjoyed this video. i hope you do more of them. thank you for doing this one.

The graph you’ve made is dependent on Nemesis still being on Sirius when it found out the extinction signal failed. I think there was a decent chance it was already on its way after them when it found out.

The question about Betas Age gets even more complicated: Time dilation. The faster you go, the closer you get to the speed of light, the less time passes for you travelling on that ship.

Nice work. That must have taken you some time. I'm saving your video so I can remember this timeline. It's really hard to keep track of not only years, months, weeks and days too. And one last thing from me. Since you liked the lore, you best watch Horizon when it comes out on Netflix. ;). You have a good one. Thumbs up.

This was a great time, well put together

Interesting. When I first head the Zenith exposition from Gaia I broke out my graph paper and made a very similar chart.

Damn it Beb, this sounds super interesting, but I haven't finished the games yet. Well, watch later it is.

I love these sorts of lore deep dives. Well done!

This was gripping. WELL DONE.

Nice find! It actually really looks like an oversight... The only thing I'm not fully convinced about is that the Far Zenith created Beta only after they were sure that the original nemesis plan had failed. After finishing the game we know that they left Sirius shortly after Nemesis destroyed their colony (IIRC Tilda said so during the breakfast she had with Aloy), moreover the FZ knew/supposed that the only chance they had to survive Nemesis was to 1) hope that its original plan to use Hades failed (which, thanks to Gaia self-destruction, it did) 2) manage to gather everything they needed on earth in order to escape to another planet and still be able to adapt it to their needs (they need Gaia with all her Functions => they need a clone of Sobeck) As soon as one of these 2 conditions fails they are done-dead-RIP, so there is no point for them to delay Beta's creation. It'd only lead to a less prepared and instructed "tool" in their hands. not only that, I'm also quite confident that Tilda was applying pressure to have an Elisabeth clone on board asap because.. yes. Anyway, great video, one of the best analysis I've seen on this game since... since it came out, GJ!

This is great work, incredible really…and all that without ever playing either game lol

You should do a video that includes the timeline of Elizabet and the end of the world and the events that happened. I think there is enough info about how all that played out but I’m not sure. Would be cool to see that all on one graph! Thanks for the video!

Just walking from Vegas to San Fran would be roughly 7.5 days. If you consider the whole area of the map, Forbidden West should be (at least) a six month process). When you throw in all th eactual questing, FB might easily be a 1.5 year peridod.

I think the zeniths created Beta earlier, knowing that she at the very least would be a “good to have” once they got to earth, either that or there was a way for them to speed up gestation at least. I think some of Beta’s early frustrations come from being the same age if not older than Aloy and feeling less prepared even though she was born and raised to do what needed to be done. They had the tech to pause their own ageing so knew they could do the same to Beta, so again I think she was born early into their journey back to earth.