Horizon Forbidden West: Relic Ruins

In Horizon Forbidden West, you’ll encounter several Relic Ruins. These platforming puzzles offer XP rewards and a curious collectible called “ornaments” tucked away behind locked doors, and getting to them usually takes a roundabout solution with some quick thinking. The first of these Relic Ruins in The Daunt, the game’s starting area, sets the table for what to expect from these tricky puzzles. Here we’ll walk you through how to complete it so you don’t have to delay Aloy’s adventure by more than a moment.

To begin, head inside the building ravaged by time and look for a metal crate with yellow markings. These crates will be seen often in the game, especially in Relic Ruins. Move the crate to the center of the room near the yellow handhold hanging above you. Normally just out of reach, now you can grab it by jumping on the crate first.

Jump up onto the second floor and you’ll notice the locked door needs both a key and a code to open. Leave it for now and head outside via the balcony left of the door. Jump the gap and enter a new room. Drop down onto the floor and look for the purple collectible in view. It can be scanned with Aloy’s focus, and reading it will give you the code you need for the door: 1705.

Turn around and use your pullcaster (aim with R2, then switch to pullcaster with triangle) to pull a second crate down from above. Then look for the vent at the end of the room and once more use your pullcaster to yank the door off of it. Using the crate, jump up to the broken overhang left of the vent (where the supply cache sits), then jump and grab onto the now open vent.

Head inside and drop down to find a fragile wall identified by the blue metal bars bolted into it. This is another recurring signal to use the pullcaster, so do so and you’ll create a gaping hole in the wall. Head into the hole in the floor beside you (it was there already) and run to the end of the dark hall, using the pullcaster once more on a ceiling piece featuring the same blue metal bars. You’ve now created a hole in the room above you, the same room you just blasted a hole into one step earlier, and the original room where you set up the first crate.

Climb back up to the previous floor and drag that original crate into the hole in the floor. Carry it to the other side of the dark hall and use it to reach some handholds (always noted by the color yellow). Climb all the way up to the top and jump down to the balcony to find the key.

With both the key and the code in hand, you can now open the locked door to the game’s first Relic Ruin. You’ll earn some XP for your trouble, plus a strange shamrock ornament. To discover the true nature of these ornaments, seek out the side quest called Night of Lights in The Stillsands region about halfway through the story. For more on Horizon, don’t miss our tips for beginners and the best skills to get early.

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