How Halo and Horizon Share a Strange Similarity

At first glance, players may not see too many similarities between the Xbox exclusive Halo and the PlayStation exclusive Horizon. Halo is a primarily first-person shooter game focused on super soldiers fighting alien religious conglomerates, ancient space zombies, and complex robots throughout the galaxy. Horizon, on the other hand, is a primarily third-person action role-playing game centered around the post-apocalyptic adventures of a young woman who strives to save the world from warring tribes, rampaging animalistic robots, and ancient war machines. However, there is one way the two series are similar: both feature protagonists who are cloned from exemplary scientists, namely Cortana and The Weapon from Doctor Halsey, and Aloy and Beta from Doctor Sobeck.

Doctor Halsey and Doctor Sobeck Explained

Doctor Catherine Halsey is one of the most important characters in the Halo universe. A lead scientist within the Office of Naval Intelligence, Halsey made numerous biological and technological breakthroughs in the field of science throughout the 26th century. Some of her most notable creations were third-generation smart artificial intelligences, Mjolnir power armor, and the Spartan-2 class of super soldiers. Halsey’s work would go on to help save humanity from near extinction during the Covenant War, particularly the actions taken by the A.I. Cortana and the Spartan Master Chief John-117. Cortana and her successor The Weapon were both made from digitized cloned brains of Halsey.

Doctor Elisabet Sobeck is similarly one of the most important characters in the Horizon universe. A technological savant, Sobeck spent most of her life striving to create tech breakthroughs to help heal Earth from environmental catastrophe in the late 21st century. However, when the robotic Faro Plague began to destroy all life on Earth, Sobeck was recruited to create Project Zero Dawn, a last ditch effort to reseed life and repair the planet after the Plague was shut down. Zero Dawn saved all life as the universe knew it thanks to the actions of Zero Dawn’s A.I. GAIA and her subroutines, who built animalistic machines to terraform the planet and reintroduced life to Earth.

Doctor Halsey and Doctor Sobeck’s Legacies

Although Halsey’s Spartans helped save humanity, many people were disgusted by how the Spartans were made from kidnapped children who were biologically enhanced and used as soldiers at only 14 years old. Others especially grew distrusting and hateful towards Halsey after one of Cortana’s fragments took control of the galaxy with Forerunner Guardians, killing millions and destroying planets such as Doisac. Meanwhile, Sobeck’s work in saving humanity in Horizon is largely unknown to modern tribes after most old world knowledge was destroyed with the deletion of APOLLO by Ted Faro. However, her selfless spirit continues to help people through the actions of her clones, Aloy and Beta, the latter of which was cloned in secret by the Far Zenith for their own evil purposes.

Doctor Halsey’s and Doctor Sobeck’s Potential Future in Halo and Horizon

While Sobeck has been dead for around 1,000 years, she may still have some influence on future Horizon games. With the threats of the incoming Far Zenith-made Nemesis and the rogue A.I. subroutine HEPHAESTUS, Aloy and her companions may have to use some technology created by Sobeck to help save the world. In Horizon Forbidden West’s Burning Shores DLC, Sylens does mention how he’s going to look for 21st century technology that may be able to help defeat Nemesis. Some of this technology could have been created by Sobeck. Aloy could additionally use some recovered holograms and data from Sobeck to help inspire Beta to overcome her fears.

With Doctor Halsey last being seen aboard the UNSC Infinity before the events of Halo Infinite, Halsey’s current status is unknown. Halsey helped deploy The Weapon on Zeta Halo to work alongside Master Chief, but it’s unknown if Halsey was still aboard the Infinity when it was attacked by the Banished or if she left for another facility before the battle began. If she was aboard the Infinity, Halsey may appear in Halo 7 presuming the Infinity is found after it went missing (following Zeta Halo’s emergency slipspace jump in response to Cortana’s sacrifice). If Halsey wasn’t aboard the Infinity, she will probably still play an important role in the Halo universe, helping develop new technologies and aiding in combating alien threats.

Despite both Halsey and Sobeck’s importance to both
Halo
and
Horizon
, they both have only appeared in a few games, those being
Halo: Reach
,
Halo 4
,
Halo 5: Guardians
,
Halo Infinite
,
Horizon Zero Dawn
, and
Horizon Forbidden West
.