Horizon Forbidden West: What Happened To Ted Faro?

The events of Horizon Forbidden West shined a light on many mysteries from Horizon Zero Dawn and left plenty more in its wake, with one of the biggest being the fate of Ted Faro. Later in the game, Aloy works alongside a new group called the Quen, who seek the knowledge of Ted Faro and the other Ancestors. Unfortunately, the group got a lot more than they bargained for and the truth about Faro’s fate is more horrific than may have first been imagined.

[Warning: spoilers ahead for Horizon Forbidden West.]

Ted Faro is Horizon Zero Dawn‘s secondary antagonist, as he lived long in the past and had no active presence throughout the game. While this would normally just make him a historical villain restricted to stories and lore, Faro’s influence is felt throughout Aloy’s life. This is because his actions led to the extinction of all life on Earth and the rise of the machines that roam Horizon Forbidden West‘s world.

As detailed in Horizon Forbidden West, Faro was the creator and CEO of Faro Automated Solutions (FAS), a company that became the most powerful and influential entity in the world. During an environmental crisis in the 2040s, he hired Elisabet Sobeck to develop green technology to stabilize said event. The plan was successful, and the world praised Faro who happily took all the credit. His greed took over him, resulting in the creation of the life-destroying robots that made Project Zero Dawn and its evolving machines a necessity – and while the world collapsed around him, he saved himself.

Horizon Forbidden West – How Ted Faro Became A Monster

The Quen is a new advanced tribe introduced in Horizon Forbidden West that sailed across the Pacific Ocean in search of data about Ted Faro. This is because the focuses they have can’t access data past the year 2050 due to them being early models, so their knowledge of the past stops during the time that Faro was seen as the savior of the world. What’s worse is that Ceo, the Quen expedition’s leader, believes himself to be the reincarnation of Faro, much like Aloy is a clone of Elisabet Sobeck – who they simply see as Faro’s assistant.

They eventually find a secret bunker named Thebes and when the group enters, they are greeted by an enormous statue of Faro. While exploring and scanning data logs, Aloy learns in Horizon Forbidden West that Faro had brought a small group of people into his bunker. Among this group is his Rasputin-esque adviser Grigori Fasbach, Dr. Somptow and his daughter, and several “girlfriends.”

Faro’s decline that occurred at the end of Horizon Zero Dawn never improved and it created a desire to reach immortality and guide the new humans how he wanted to, which further reiterated his evil tendencies. Faro also became very paranoid, eventually to the point where he ended up killing everyone in his bunker except Dr. Somptow and his daughter. Somptow successfully managed to make Faro immortal, but as the story in Horizon Forbidden West reveals, the process caused his cells to rapidly mutate.

As time went on and things got worse, Somptow and his daughter ultimately took their own lives. Faro knew about his mutations and that this event would leave him with no one to address and stabilize them. His final hope was to take refuge in the generator room in hopes that it would stop the mutations. When Aloy reached the generator’s control room and checked the system diagnostics in Horizon Forbidden West, she saw a hologram of what was beyond the control room’s door.

All that can be seen in the hologram is a giant red object with tendrils sticking to the walls which take up nearly the entire room. Horizon Forbidden West‘s Aloy immediately knows that this is Faro, as there are vital signs coming from the room but no brain activity. She attempts to warn Ceo but he enters the room anyway, only to be met with the groans of the defeated, semi-sentient wall of flesh that was once Ted Faro. Of all of Horizon Forbidden West‘s revelations and mysteries, the fate of Ted Faro is easily the most disturbing of them all.

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