Horizon Forbidden West’santagonists, Far Zenith, create a compelling narrative examining the selfish and dangerous natures of the wealthy, immoral elite who worry only about their safety at the expense of humanity. Their leader, Gerard Bieri, demonstrates some of the worst of these qualities as he pushes his plans to steal GAIA and her sub-functions for his ends. However, despite being featured as a primary antagonist inHorizon Forbidden WestforAloy, the adversarial relationship between them to drive this is largely missing.
While Gerard indeed interacts with Aloy, even ordering her death at the hands of other Far Zeniths, many players expected a more one on one conflict between the two. Narratively speaking, it makes sense to give an antagonistic group a figurehead for representation and players to rally against; however, this typically fosters a personal arc between the protagonist and the antagonist. This dynamic is more aligned with otherFar Zenith membersthan with Gerard.
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Gerard Bieri Before Horizon Forbidden West
During the 21st century, Gerard was the head of the largest financial conglomerate in the world. Through this business, he interacted with nearly every corporation on the planet, accruing his wealth and increasing it tenfold. With such immense wealth, Gerard joined Far Zenith, a think tank group of the wealthiest people in the mid-21st century. Seeing themselves as a future consortium to extend humanity to the stars,Far Zenith revived the defunct Odyssey shipin orbit for their colonization efforts.
When the Faro Plague destroyed life on Earth, Gerard was situated to leave Earth in the Odyssey. A data point inHorizon Zero Dawnreports that the Odyssey suffered a catastrophic antimatter containment failure and was destroyed before it could leave the solar system.Horizon Forbidden Westreveals this is untrue, with Far Zenith, now led by Gerard, creating the lie to hide their survival and plans.
In reality, Far Zenith made it to theSirius Star System, where they colonized the habitable planet.Horizon Forbidden Westdetails how Gerard and Far Zenith achieved physical immortality through their wealth, vast intellect, and advanced technology. However, this wasn’t enough, and the group sought digital transcendence through digital immortality, being able to upload their consciousness into any organic or mechanical form.
This led tothe creation of Nemesis, an upload of all of Far Zenith, along with their intellect, emotions, prejudices, and behaviors. Considered a failure, Nemesis was isolated and abandoned. Achieving sentience, Nemesis broke free, destroyed Sirius, and pursued Gerard and ten other Zentiths across the cosmos. It sent the extinction protocol to Earth to awaken the GAIA sub-function HADES to destroy life, thus depriving the Zeniths of a haven.
Gerard as Far Zenith’s Leader and Main Antagonist
As the leader ofFar Zenith, Gerard is cold and calculating, actively showing disdain for the tribal inhabitants of a reconstituted Earth. He often kills them if there’s interference with his plans, though he does not display enjoyment in this as Erik does. When Gerard appears inHorizon Forbidden West, he is shocked to find Aloy, whom he recognizes as a clone of Elisabet Sobeck, having his clone on hand in the form of Beta.
When Aloy rescues Beta, the latter details that Gerard and the Zeniths are after their backup of GAIA, and her subordinate functions to terraform the planet in an image suitable to them, possibly worshiped as gods. At this point, Beta and Aloy are unaware of Nemesis and that thetrue plan of Gerard and the Zeniths is to abandon Earth to Nemesis, flee to some hidden planet, and terraform that into their new home.
While this course of action does put Gerard on a direct collision course with Aloy’s plans to capture the subordinate functions to save Earth, Gerard rarely pursues or interacts with Aloy directly. Throughout the game, the Zeniths are referenced repeatedly by the group’s name rather than Gerard individually. While they both want the same thing and Gerard is more powerful than Aloy initially, the lack of personal conflict hinders his role.
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Other Far Zenith Antagonists in Horizon Forbidden West
Rather than fleshing out apersonal conflict between Aloy and Gerard,Horizon Forbidden Westdoes this with the other two leaders of Far Zenith: Erik and Tilda. Erik is portrayed as a sadist, loving to murder in virtual reality and real life. He toys with Aloy before trying to kill her, amused by her inability to harm him. Later, he murders Varl, a close friend of Aloy, as he tries to protect Beta. These actions drive a more personal conflict and vendetta between Erik and Aloy, culminating in an epic fight before Erik meets his demise at the hands of Zoe.
Furthermore, Tilda van der Meer is a compelling antagonist as she laments her involvement with Far Zenith yet displays characteristics attuned to them. Being the formerlover of Elisabet Sobeck, Tilda regrets leaving Elisabet to die on Earth. She plans to rectify this mistake by abducting Aloy, bringing her aboard the Odyssey, and fleeing Earth and Nemesis. This also displays personal conflict for Aloy, as Tilda initially protects her as an ally before revealing her plans, all things lacking with Gerard.
An Anti-climactic Defeat for Gerard
Due to Tilda’s plans to abduct and run away with Aloy, and after protecting her from her colleagues, Tilda does what she can to help Aloy defeat Far Zenith. To this end, she assists Aloy and her allies in infiltrating the Zenith base. She further allowsSylens to destroythe Zenith’s shields, which protect them from harm. Lastly, Tilda ascends the Far Zenith tower and personally kills Gerard after he activates the self-destruct failsafe of the machine printing matrix.
This demise severely underscores Gerard as a primary antagonist, as not only does he die lacking any direct conflict with Aloy, but they don’t even fight. Instead,the final battle inHorizon Forbidden Westis between Aloy and Tilda, who encases herself in Specter Prime in her attempts to subdue Aloy. Gerard’s most significant threat at the end is his ability to shut down the elevator on Aloy and set Hephaestus free once again. While that allows Hephaestus to provide more machines for the third game, it undervalues Gerard overall.
Horizon Forbidden Westis available now for PS4 and PS5.
