Horizon Forbidden West™ Complete Edition: Horizon Forbidden West [+DLC] – 100% Achievement Guide

First off, this game is an actual sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn and expects you to be familiar with the first game’s characters and story beats of both the base game AND it’s DLC, which was a direct bridge into Forbidden West’s story.
As such, I highly recommend you to play Zero Dawn first, if you haven’t done so yet.

Here’s my guide for that one:

• https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2190967879

The DLC for Horizon Forbidden West – namely The Burning Shores – is a direct continuation of this game’s main story, and as such only becomes available after you’ve successfully completed said main story. So unlike Zero Dawn, you can’t accidentally walk into it too early this time.

This also means that completing the story does NOT automatically put you in NG+ as some games like to do.

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Let’s talk about missable and annoying achievements.

Unlike the previous game, the final mission for Forbidden West is NOT repeatable anymore!
There’s 2 new Non-Dinosaur machines tied to the main mission, which you HAVE to scan within any of the main or side missions featuring them, and can NOT be encountered infinitely in the overworld.

This also applies to the final boss of the DLC.

IF you fail to do scan those 3 however, you’ll have at least a second chance anyway, because of the following achievements, which we NEED to talk about, BEFORE you start your playthrough…:

The REALLY annoying achievement here is “Obtained All New Game+ Rewards”.
You “””obtain””” these rewards by buying them from any respective Vendor in NG+.
But in order to buy all of them, you need a total of 125 “Champion Tokens”.
These tokens are rewarded exclusively in NG+ for completing basically every form of quest (so main, side, Tallnecks, Cauldrons, Rebel Camps etc. included).

To obtain 125 of these Tokens though, you’ll have to do A LOT of content.
Even if you rush the main story on easiest difficulty, then immediately go to NG+, finish the main story again + all achievement related side-content + the DLC and then complete yet another full main story playthrough on Ulta Hard, you’ll barely have enough of them…

As such, I recommend you to consider doing exactly that: Finish the main story once and advance into NG+ on a difficulty of your choice, before doing any of the side content.
Skipping all of the cutscenes and having access to certain upgrades from your first playthrough makes a second go around of the main story mission a lot faster.

Ultra Hard difficulty becomes available upon completing the story for the first time.

Lastly, let’s talk about skill point allocation.

The Burning Shores’ skills are located at the bottom of each of the 6 skill trees. Learning all these skills includes maxing the Valor Surges to level 3 each, requiring a total of 72 skill points, not counting all the skill points required to even advance down to them.
You also need the other marked skill nodes in the “Warrior” tree for another achievement, as well as one maxed out tree of your choice.

Make sure to grab the marked skills before finishing all other achievements, in order to save yourself from some avoidable grind:

And once you’ve got all other achievements:

Just finish the main story on a difficulty comfortable to you. Dialogue choices do NOT matter.

Make sure to scan the final boss, as the final story mission is NOT repeatable, unlike Zero Dawn! (Though you’re gonna have to do at least 1 NG+ playthrough)

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For this you gonna need to complete 4 specific side missions:

“The Bristlebacks” will automatically be accepted very early on as part of the main story.
“The Twilight Path” can be started by talking to Petra in Chainscrape.

“Shadow from the Past” starts by talking to the Prisoner in Barren Light.
“Shadow in the West” will then be started automatically as a follow-up quest.

Complete “The Second Verse”.
Can be accepted within your Base during the story, or on the upper floor of Plainsong after having completed the final mission.

Complete “What Was Lost”.
Can be accepted within your Base during the story, or next to Hekkaro’s Throne in the Memorial Grove after having completed the final mission.

Complete “Forbidden Legacy”.
Can be accepted within your Base during the story, or at Legacy’s Landfall, the Quen base to the far west, after having completed the final mission.

Complete the quest chain “Thirst for the Hunt” -> “The Wound in the Sand” -> “The Gate of the Vanquished”.
The first one starts in Arrowhand, a small settlement just south-west of your base.

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Go to any of the 4 locations marked above, which don’t have specific quest names next to them, and complete all contracts available at that location.

Complete any 2 of the 4 named missions marked above.
While you’re at it, jump off your mount at any point and do the 60 seconds gliding.

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The Tallneck at the middle of the map is locked to a late game main story mission and one is hidden inside the northern most cauldron.
Two of the cauldrons are story-locked as well.

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Complete any 3 of the relics, as well as 1 of each type of icon from the map just above.

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Complete all of the major camps and any 4 of the rebel outposts.

The final rebel camp, the north-western one, is locked until the other 5 have been completed.

The outposts require you to collect a “Soldier Tag” to complete them. Some of the outpost leaders have them on their body, some of them have a key to a chest you’ll have to find and loot.

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Just do the two earliest machine strike challenges in Chainscrape and Barren Light.
The tutorials from the Chainscrape NPC don’t count, though the “Beginner’s Practice: Easy” does.

There’s 4 gauntlet runs in total, with each successful win unlocking the next one.
For the first one, go to the location marked with a green circle in the map just above.

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Well, complete the 3 types of combat challenges spread all over the open world.

In order to play all of the melee pits on your way to access the Enduring, you’ll have to unlock all of the melee combos – the kinda square skill nodes illustrated both at the top of this guide, as well as in the Skills chapter a bit further down below.

For the Arena challenges to become available, you’ll have to complete the side-mission to the immediate east of the arena (the one located pretty much at the exact center of the map).

You do NOT need to scan or kill all the sub-types of a given machine. One each of the 43 base game machines is sufficient.

The vast majority of the machines are forced encounters during the story and otherwise required content for all achievements, so there’s not that much to grind here.

As with Zero Dawn, there’s 2 new story-specific machines, but those are actually missable this time around, as the final mission is no longer repeatable.
The returning story-specific machine from the first game (the scorpion-like machine) is infinitely encounterable in the arena.

The 4 DLC machines do NOT count towards the 4 achievements above (as they have their own achievement in the DLC section).

Basically self-explanatory.
Heavy weapons = Useable weapons detached from machines.

You do NOT need to apply all of the 6 elemental states through your own weapons (although it’s easier). Destroying machine cannisters, to basically have them apply the elemental states to themselves, works for this as well.
There’s 6 states required for this achievement: Fire, Frost, Shock, Acid, Purgewater, Plasma

Overrides are once again the rewards for completing the cauldrons, which you gonna have to do for another achievement anyway.
The Clawstrider is one of those cauldron-locked overrides.

Easily achieved on your way to all other achievements.

Marked skill nodes are required for achievements.

Self-explanatory.

Put your aquired skills to use.
The Specter Gauntlet is a DLC weapon, so I’ll mention it again in the chapter below for your convenience.

Basically self-explanatory.

In order to upgrade the food pouch, you’ll have to go out of your way to specifically buy food from a vendor.
To apply a new dye, go to any of the 4 vendors:

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You’ll get access to the DLC area after you’ve finished the base game’s main story, as the DLC story is a direct continuation.

Complete the DLC’s main story.

As with the base game, make absolutely sure to scan the DLC’s final boss, as it’s an unique, one time encounter and the quest is NOT repeatable (until NG+)!

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Well, complete the Epilogue mission, the 2 side missions in Fleet’s End (one of which makes you upgrade the specter gauntlet), the mission unlocked upon completing the relic ruin (which requires a flying mount), as well as the cauldron.

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Self-explanatory.
Make sure to scan the DLC’s final boss.
Go for the Kill x achievement after having completed the achievements further above in this chapter, specifically the cauldron.

Unlock the required skill node, find a place with lots of Stingspawn and get to it.

Refers to the orange coils and weaves, which literally have “Elite” within their names.

Just grab 16 Brimshine and buy any 1 weapon and 1 outfit in Fleet’s End.
There’s over a hundred Brimshine in the DLC, so this shouldn’t pose a problem.
You can also get them from the base game’s Arena, once you’ve completed the DLC’s main story.

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Unlike the base game, you’ll have to recover all of them for the DLC achievements.

Check out the first chapter at top of this guide, as I’ve said basically all the important stuff over there.

Starting a NG+ playthrough on Ultra Hard locks you into that difficulty until you start yet another NG+ cycle, while any other difficulty still let’s you change it mid-run… to anything but that Ultra Hard.

Yes, you can buy the NG+ Rewards throughout several NG+ cycles; they carry over.
(So you might want to prioritize the weapons.)

Good Luck!

All of the map overviews have been created with the interactive map at:

https://mapgenie.io/horizon-forbidden-west/maps/world