Following Horizon Forbidden West’s launch nearly a month ago, more players on PS4 and PS5 are reaching the game’s final chapters all the time. While it can take upwards of 27 hours to see Aloy’s main adventure through to its end, the way in which Guerrilla Games has built an engaging story ensures most won’t be able to rest until they’ve done so. The way in which the almost inevitable third game in the series is set up during Forbidden West’s ending, with apocalyptic stakes attached, also means some won’t be able to easily move on afterwards.
However, what fans might be surprised to learn is the fact that the narrative themes Horizon Forbidden West plays around with during its conclusion aren’t exactly unique within the current gaming landscape. Curiously, the German studio Piranha Bytes has dialed into a lot of the same concepts and ideas for its latest title. Released on March 1, only a few short weeks after Guerrilla Games’ own action-RPG, Elex 2’s final moments will be familiar to anyone who’s played through the aforementioned hit. Everything from the threats on display to the way in which a third installment is teased on a cliffhanger is surprisingly similar.
Elex and Horizon’s Similarities
Before players can get to the conclusion of either Horizon Forbidden West or Elex 2, it will become readily apparent to them just how much both universes have in common. From just a genre perspective alone, both games are action-RPGs that are built around geologically diverse open worlds. In a similar vein, the arsenals that are available to Aloy and her counterpart Commander Jax also walk the line between being simultaneously retro and futuristic. Other mechanics like the ability to craft upgrades and make moral choices are present and accounted for in both games as well. Elex 2’s focus on magic is one of the rare features that’s not currently part of Guerrilla Games’ universe.
Considering the popularity of the RPGs that have come out of Europe over the last few decades, it’s not all that surprising that Horizon Forbidden West and Elex 2 mirror each other mechanically. What is striking, though, and helps to set up their conclusions, is the narrative themes that both games are built around. On paper at least, the universes of Horizon and Elex are decidedly post-apocalyptic in nature. Following the rise of killer self-replicating machines and the arrival of a deadly comet respectively, both depictions of humanity were pushed back into tribe-like factions. The planets they take place on might be different, but the rush to utilize ancient terraforming technology is felt to an extent in both stories as well.
Rounding out Horizon and Elex’s coincidentally spooky similarities, is a pair of real-world comparisons. Forbidden West and Elex 2’s proximity release date wise isn’t the first time that the universes have shared space in that regard. Horizon Zero Dawn might have been overshadowed by The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild when 2017’s award season rolled around, but in many ways, Guerrilla Games’ action-RPG did the same to other genre contemporaries. The original Elex, for example was released in October 2017, which also means that Piranha Bytes has been working on its sequel for almost the same amount of time as Guerrilla.
Elex 2’s Ending
Throughout Elex 2’s narrative campaign players are faced with the looming threat of war. That’s because during the final moments of 2017’s original Elex game, Commander Jax was informed of the true nature of the comet that triggered Magalan’s apocalypse. Before their final confrontation, the Hybrid revealed to the protagonist that the Skyand, a group of former human scientists, had deliberately crashed the celestial object into the planet. The titular Elex that was subsequently unleashed and adopted by the survivors was actually designed to prepare the world for their eventual return. Armed with this knowledge, players must attempt to build alliances in anticipation of this eventuality.
Over the course of Elex 2, Jax and the player gradually receive more insight into the Skyand’s motivations and history. It’s revealed that before Magalan’s demise, the former group of human scientists attempted to reach a mysterious cosmic entity known as The Singularity. While it first appears as though their goal was altruistic, in reality their desires revolved exclusively around attaining everlasting life for themselves. To a certain extent, the Skyand were able to achieve this by stealing Elex from the entity, a process that presumably altered them into the reptile-like creatures seen in-game.
During Elex 2’s climactic final moments, it becomes clear that the Skyand’s plans for the Singularity aren’t finished there. Having stolen a part of what’s believed to be a sentient entity, the mutated humans are now terrified of its desire for retribution. While the Singularity’s presence is never physically shown on-screen, the Skyand predict that when it arrives on Magalan, it will absorb all life into itself. The comet and the Skyand’s subsequent attempts to sacrifice humanity were all designed in an attempt to allow the group to take control of it instead.
Horizon Forbidden West’s Ending
While some of the specific details might be different, Aloy still finds herself confronting a lot of the same headaches that Jax does during Horizon Forbidden West’s closing chapters. For starters, even though they still retain their humanoid shape, the game’s antagonistic Far Zenith and their lust for immortal life aren’t too dissimilar to Elex 2’s Skyand. Having assumed that the colonists were responsible for HADES’ genocidal plans during Zero Dawn’s main story, it’s also revealed that similarly to the Skyand, the Far Zenith are also terrified of a much bigger threat that's been pulling the strings all along.
Having successfully established a colony on Sirius in the wake of the apocalyptic Faro Plague, it’s revealed that the Far Zenith still didn’t abstain from messing around with robots. In an attempt to attain digital immortality, certain members of the colony poured their minds, memories, and fears into the creation of an AI known as Nemesis. Despite attempts to bury what was deemed a failed experiment, Nemesis was still able to attain sentience. Driven mad by isolation, and armed with access to every Far Zenith system, the AI destroyed the Sirius colony in a matter of hours. While it first looks as though the Far Zenith were planning to mold the Earth to their will, in reality they actually planned on sacrificing it to their AI pursuer. This is similar to the Skyand and the entity that's hunting them.
While it remains to be seen what Elex’s Singularity actually wants with humanity, it’s clear that it and Nemesis are going to enact similar plans in their respective universes. Having sent the signal to activate HADES, it’s pointed out to Aloy that Nemesis is hellbent on preventing its creators from ever building a new home for themselves. Even though the Far Zenith are taken out of the picture following Tilda’s death in Horizon Forbidden West, there’s a sense that this won’t change the AIs destructive plans. In both universes, the manner in which a larger threat has been introduced at the 11th hour in unexpected fashion has set up a similarly agonizing wait for answers among their respective fan-bases.
Horizon Forbidden West is available now on PS4 and PS5.