Horizon Zero Dawn's Cauldron Dungeons Are Incredibly Cool

Just when you think you’ve really gotten the hang of Horizon Zero Dawn, creeping around and hunting robot dinosaurs in the colorful open world, along comes a Cauldron to blow your damn mind.

"This week, after spending ~80 hours with Breath of the Wild and over 100 hours with Persona 5, I decided to revisit Horizon, a PS4 game that deserves every accolade it’s racked up. Not only is it the most graphically impressive video game we’ve seen to date—thanks, hyper-realism—it’s got a unique rhythm that distinguishes it from other, shootier AAA games. Aloy, your badass red-headed heroine, has an arsenal of arrows, traps, and crafty attacks that you can use in several satisfying ways to take down increasingly powerful squadrons of robot dinosaurs.

And then there are the Cauldrons. In Horizon Zero Dawn, Cauldrons are optional dungeons that you’ll find all across the map. Patricia tells me that later in the game they’re explained properly but when you first encounter them, they’re enigmas. Each is a mysterious cavern of twisted rock and metal, buried deep under the deserts and forests of Horizon’s sweeping world. There are four of five of them, and each is full of puzzles, platforming, and tough dinosaurs to sneak past." - Jason Schreier