"Something shining… like a jewel."
Aloy, discovering the Focus

A Gift from the Past is the first main quest in Horizon Zero Dawn. Serving as a prologue, the story begins following Rost as he raises Aloy as a young girl. While venturing across Nora lands, Aloy finds herself trapped in a ruin cave and must find a way to escape.


Six years after her naming ceremony, Aloy, a young Nora tribe outcast, watches other children gather berries from afar. She is shunned after trying to join the group. With her feelings hurt, she runs away from her caretaker Rost and stumbles into an expansive underground cave. Inside she discovers the cave is actually the entrance to an underground bunker, a ruin of the ancients, known as the Old Ones. These areas are always avoided by the Nora tribe as they are considered to be places of corruption and evil.

Aloy discovers a corpse with a strange device attached to its ear. She removes the device and attaches it to her own, which reveals detailed holograms and visual data. The device is called a Focus and is an important piece of forgotten technology. The ruins hold several large metal doors that are unlocked by using the Focus. Deeper inside the ruins, Aloy finds audio and video recordings on the bodies of several old inhabitants.

As Aloy progresses deeper, she eventually reunites with Rost, who scolds her for running off on her own. He assures her that he will teach her how to hunt starting the next day.


  1. Find a Way Out
  2. Examine the Strange Object
  3. Find a Way back to the Surface
  4. Use the Device to Scan the Room
  5. Use the Holo Lock
  6. Return to the Door
  7. Open the Door
  8. Find a Way Out
  9. Scan the Device
  10. Find a Way Out


A Gift from the Past - Very Hard - No Damage - Video Guide



The following datapoints are obtained automatically during this quest and cannot be missed.

Hologram Datapoints


  • This quest doubles as a tutorial level.
Horizon Zero Dawn Quests
Cauldrons Cauldron RHO - Cauldron SIGMA - Cauldron XI - Cauldron ZETA
Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds Quests