beans and nixies 🫘

This question kicked off one of the most important aspects of the Nil route - Aloy’s willingness to see Nil as a partner and to work as a team. The best choice here is for her to offer to come alongside him, not to show him how to do it better or just watch him figure it out on his own, but to meet him where he’s at and work together with him. Aloy asking instead of telling (like she would in the “suggest a fix” option) also highlights her own growth by trying to be better at connecting with people instead of immediately trying to fix a problem.

This question comes after Aloy finds out about the lingering Eclipse presence in the West that Nil is hunting down and we went pretty subtle with this one. Ostensibly, all of these are good choices, and this question really hits the most at what Aloy’s focus is on at this moment and that’s where we put the emphasis. Tracking them down is very mission oriented and somewhat detached from Nil, whereas mentioning that it may be dangerous for him to do this alone is more empathetic but also puts doubt in his abilities despite him having proven himself a very capable warrior in the past. Saying that it sounds like a challenge may seem more lighthearted, but that’s what it’s supposed to be: Aloy acknowledging that they’re both extremely competent and that she would be willing to join him in another of their ventures together, which have always presented a challenge in one way or another.

Aloy and Nil coming across the first pair of Eclipse is an extremely important moment in their journey and we did get tricky with these options because of that. Once again, this is meant to highlight how Aloy approaches their partnership and teamwork, but most importantly this is meant for her to give Nil the choice in how he wants to proceed without taking over. Both of them are leaders, but we’ve seen Aloy struggle to give her trust to others and we’ve also seen through her eyes as Nil goes through his own journey. Offering to take care of the Eclipse without him implies that that she knows he’s not dueling or really killing anymore and she can take care of them if he doesn’t want to, but it also takes that choice away from him, especially after he started this mission on his own, knowing that he would be fighting and killing Eclipse soldiers. Offering to take them since she needs to practice, on the other hand, cheapens the mission they’re on in one way and also cheapens the act of taking the life of another; for all that Nil called it “sport” in HZD, we also know that death is intrinsically tied to him and that taking a step away from that in HFW was a huge step for him so making light of that isn’t something he would like her doing. Offering to let him take care of them allows for his choice in the matter, letting him set his own boundaries and also give him the chance to offer her the choice to team up again, which he does.

At this point, Nil is telling Aloy about his childhood and being drafted into the Sun-King’s army at a very young age. The options we gave almost mirror the canon choices of heart-fist-brain, where one is empathetic, one is a little more strong-handed, and the last is an observation. Saying it sounds like a difficult childhood is Aloy being empathetic, but it doesn’t quite cross the boundary between them where she opens up. Saying that our pasts make us stronger, while perhaps true, is more callous and almost dismisses the horror of what he is revealing to her. Drawing the parallel between them with her own early childhood highlights both their similarities and their differences, at once both commiserating with him but also claiming her own choice in her journey that he didn’t have. In this way, aloy opens up to him about herself without dismissing his own struggles, and also internally realizes a little bit more about why he’s so macabre now when that’s how he was raised.

This question about Nil’s whittling hobby was meant to gauge how Aloy feels about Nil, and whether she’s more concerned about him being a threat or curious about him and his story. Saying it seems like a good thing for him implies that she’s focusing the most on him using it as a coping mechanism to keep from being a danger to himself or others which, while true, shouldn’t be what she focuses on above him as a person. Asking if he has any carvings she can see is more positive and shows her curiosity, but it doesn’t get to the heart of him the way that the last option does. Asking him how he learned to carve indicates that she wants to know more about him and his past, about why he does things, tapping both into Aloy’s innate curiosity and her connection to Nil. It is an open-ended question from her, encouraging Nil to reveal more about himself because she wants to know.

Since Nil is one of the recurring characters that was not brought into the know in HFW, we thought this moment was a really important one for their relationship. Aloy has often been forced to share her story in one way or another, so choosing to let someone in of her volition was a big choice and how she decides to do that is vital. Saying that she doesn’t want to burden him means that she doesn’t think he’s strong enough to either understand or carry the weight of it, lessening his own strength and insulting him. Choosing to say that she’s not ready to tell him means that telling him is either a burden on her or that she doesn’t fully trust him, neither of which bode well for their relationship. Telling him that he’s been in the dark for long enough is an acknowledgement of the fact that she does trust him and that she’s giving in to her own need for connection and support from those she cares about.

While Aloy is opening up about her HFW companions to Nil, we give players the choice for her to open up more or less. This one was mostly context clues: both of the other options are more vague and the wording is less open to questions, almost dismissive in the “they’re a good group” option. That one in particular may also come off to Nil that he wasn’t good enough to be included in her cadre, whether or not she meant that. Saying that there was someone else is more specific and it naturally invites the “who and what happened” question that gives Aloy the space to open up about Varl and how his loss scarred her. This could have also been referring to Seyka, but because of Nil’s connection to life and death, we wanted to tap into her grief and vulnerability over Varl’s fate.

This choice comes after Aloy almost thought she watched Nil die, that she had lost another person and failed them the way she did Varl, which means she’s shaken and trying to hide it. Waiting for him to speak seems like it leaves space for him to take the lead, but it also means Aloy is likely retreating into her own head and not opening up to him. Telling him to move faster next time can be playful, but it’s also the same kind of censure a superior gives to a subordinate, not necessarily to a partner. Apologizing about his face paint while she tends to his wound lightens the mood a little, but it also acknowledges that she’s stripping him of one of the many masks he’s donned the same way that she’s been vulnerable with him during the past day. She’s seen his face before, but masks can be shields and he’s facing down a villain from his past, so she’s letting him know that she sees what he was doing and is sorry for taking that away from him even as she’s trying to help him.

After watching Nil get hit, Aloy has a flashback to her harrowing encounter with the Kraakspike, causing her to freeze and we know now that Nil noticed and he calls her out for it. Aloy can choose to make a joke of it (“surprised to see you get hit for once”), cut herself off from support and almost censuring herself for her weakness (“yes, but it won’t happen again”), or she can admit that she’s not always hyper-competent and open up about her horrible experience and how that’s affected in the past few months.

This question is meant to call back to the emphasis on teamwork and trust in each other’s skills. Choosing to mirror Nil and take the grasses to the left while he takes the grasses to the right indicates that she trusts him to take care of himself and that section of guards while she does the same on her side. Following Nil, while it keeps them together, makes the process take a bit longer and doesn’t necessarily play to the fact that they’re both extremely skilled warriors. Creating a distraction, on the other hand, is never a way they fought together in the past and deviates from that comfortable partnership they would have fostered in the bandit camps of HZD, and would therefore confuse Nil and throw them off balance.

This is the more intense - and hopefully easier - version of Q2, even though the answer at surface level doesn’t match offering Nil the initial choice with the first Eclipse soldiers. Does Aloy try to take everything onto her own shoulders to spare him and thereby underestimate his strength? Does she let him shoulder the burden of killing his old tormentor and guide alone? Or does she offer to do this together, facing down his past as partners and sharing the weight of his struggle the same way he would do for her? In the bandit camps, what they were doing was honorable but Nil wasn’t in a good place and Aloy didn’t fully trust him yet. After his own growth and her finally starting to let others in, they’re both in a better place where their partnership can flourish and they’ll fight together better than ever when they’re facing down an enemy who will only cause more death and destruction if they let him go.

And here we come to the crux of their partnership. Choosing to say that Nil is a soldier shrinks him down to only his former role and the weapon he was molded to be initially against his will, overlooking his own struggle to become more than that since he was released from prison. Saying “we need you” is much better, but that infers that it’s not personal, that they need him in the war against Nemesis as another ally and that’s all. Aloy saying “I need you” makes it intensely personal, acknowledging that he is important to her and that she wants more from their relationship than chance meetings on the road or another ally to throw into the upcoming battles. This is Aloy asking for more from him in the hopes that he’ll meet her halfway…and if you played your cards right, he will!