Deep Secrets of the Earth - Horizon: Zero Dawn Guide - IGN (2024)

This is one of the many Main Quests found in Horizon: Zero Dawn. It will begin immediately after finishing To Curse The Darkness.

• Recommended Level:21
• Rewards: 10500 XP, +1 Skill Points

Your first goal is to reach Sunfall. Once you reach the place, follow the objective marker through town and eventually you will reach a courtyard, where a cutscene will play. During this cutscene, a woman will talk to you, which unlocks a new side quest, if you wish to partake in it.

Use the Secret Entrance

Otherwise, when the cutscene ends, turn around and exit the room. Immediately look left for a gap in the railing where you can jump down and wall climb down the cliff.

When you reach the bottom, you'll speak with Sylens and then be able to rip off the wood and enter the vent. Sylens warns you that the journey ahead is long, and he means it. This upcoming mission ties directly into the next main mission, Terror of the Sun, and you will not be able to do any side missions/exploration during this time.

After some cutscenes, you will finally regain control of Aloy, and be inside another Old World facility. Much like previous ones, this facility is very linear, but there are a lot of things to pick up along the way if you pay attention to your HUD.

Deal With the Shadow Carja

When you heard towards the Viewing Room, you will have your first encounter with the Shadow Carja. When you initially enter this room, you can look to your right and climb a ladder if you want to get a good vantage point and stealth around. You can also look to your left when you enter the room for a secret tunnel that will also help with stealth.

Otherwise, you can instead face the three enemies head on and take them down in close quarters. Cover can be a little hard to find in this area, so you do need to be wary of the one Shadow Heavy with the Firestriker weapon.

Look around for any Datapoints you want, then follow your waypoint to the Viewing Room to get more story about Project Zero Dawn.

Go to Central Projects

You'll head through Processing and go towards Central Projects while finding more Datapoints that explain what happened in the past. As you head through a door you unlock, you'll come up against another group of Shadow Carja. There is no clean way to stealth here from the start, so you instead want to use the doorway you just walked through as cover.

Poke your body out for headshots with your bow, or just bait them into coming down the hall so you can use traps or other weapons to finish them off. Again, be careful here since a couple of the enemies are using heavy weapons in close quarters.

Restore Power to the Door

If you want, you can continue to search for Datapoints, but the next part of this search involves unlocking a door. You'll need to figure out multiple codes in order to power this door back up and continue your mission.

The first set of locks will be on your left. This set is straightforward as you just need to scan the Faro panel and follow the instructions. The code is (from left to right): left, up, left, down, right.

The code on your right is more involved. You'll need to recover an Emitter for the missing slot, and then you need to read the Faro panel in reverse because it's upside down. First, grab the missing Emitter by heading through a door adjacent to the room you're in right now. You'll head up a ladder and soon enough find the Emitter on a table.

Go back to the code room now and install that Emitter. You can now follow the panel if you use a little brainpower. Again, the panel is upside down so you need to do things slightly different than usual. The code should be (from left to right): down, left, up, right, down.

Head back to the door that should now be powered up, and you can move ahead for another short cutscene. After the scene, you now have another battle with the Shadow Carja. This battle can be done in a stealthy manner, but you most likely need to have the Leader Strike Skill unlocked to cleanly do it. Another option is if you have the Double/Triple Shot Skill unlocked, you can put multiple headshots into the heavy enemies. Regardless of your tactics, be wary of the two enemies with heavy weapons.

After you clear this first wave of three enemies, another wave enters, and this one is larger than the last (and will be on multiple levels of the room).

You can go the stealth route here again if you want. If you do that, focus on the enemies on the second floor first. There are five enemies in total to eliminate, and there is one heavy in that group.

A third (and final) wave will then follow. This wave works like the last where you do have a moment to hide if you want to take a stealth approach, but these enemies will be a little more aggressive hunting you down. The big thing is to try and eliminate the two heavy enemies first and go from there.

Find Sobeck's Office

Some more dialogue will play out between Aloy and Sylens as you make your way towards Elisabet Sobeck's office. There is also another battle with the Shadow Carja on deck.

There are six enemies to deal with in this room. You can't easily snipe them through the vents from above, so you'll have to drop down and deal with them. The same general tactics can apply where you either go with a stealth approach, or go in loud and make sure to get rid of the heavy enemy first.

Various Datapoints and story bits will play out at this point. Follow the waypoint to Sobeck's office and consume the heavy amount of lore that's being thrown your way at this point. Climb up an elevator shaft to get to Sobeck's office and continue your story download there.

After collecting a couple specific Datapoints in Sobeck's office, you'll get a cutscene that will end this mission and lead directly into Terror of the Sun.