Editing Machines (Horizon) (section)

=== Thematic and critical analysis ===
Jesús Fernández-Caro noted that ''Zero Dawn'' blurs the traditional boundaries dividing humans, animals, and machines, placing them all on a shared "continuum of life forms". He identifies Aloy as a "feminine posthuman" whose birth from a machine within a matriarchal society allows her to serve as a bridge between the biological and the technological. Fernández-Caro describes the machines as "postmodern animals" that resist traditional representations of nonhumans as mere tools, instead functioning as a speculative lens to rethink human-animal relations. Furthermore, he emphasises that the narrative uses empathy as the primary key for the player to understand and navigate this ecosystem, ultimately advocating for a mode of coexistence that recognises the value of nonhuman life over human dominance.<ref name="Posthumanism" />

However, while scholars like Fernández-Caro highlight the narrative's themes of [[posthumanism]] and [[ecofeminism]], others have argued that the franchise's gameplay mechanics actively contradict these messages. Andrei Nae and Eirini Bourontzi analyse the mechanical ecosystem as a site of "colonial realism", arguing that the gameplay reinforces colonial and capitalist forms of domination. They point to the "Focus"{{efn|The Focus is a device that can do things such as scan enemies, provide environmental information, and mark targets.<ref name="Focus" />}} and the in-game map as primary colonial tools; the Focus superimposes a "capitalist colonial gaze" that reduces the machines to their "exchange value", while the map facilitates territorial expansion. Because the [[Role-playing video game|RPG]] economy requires the player to systematically hunt and dismantle machines for loot to fund necessary upgrades, Nae and Bourontzi assert that the player is conditioned to act as a "colonial entrepreneur". Further analysing the machines' origins, they note that the Old World military robots use ancient Egyptian nomenclature, such as the "Scarab", "Khopesh", and "Horus", to define them as antagonists through a [[Eurocentrism|Eurocentric]] moral binary. They also evaluate the franchise against Victor Navarro-Remesal's criteria for a "green video game", concluding that it fails because the machines infinitely respawn and their destroyed [[chassis]] eventually vanish without lasting environmental consequence. This design, they argue, promotes a [[neoliberalism|neoliberal]] ideal of "infinite growth in an infinitely regenerating world", where the mechanical ecosystem is treated merely as a commodity for exploitation rather than a community requiring moral consideration.<ref name="ColonialRealism" />

Conversely, other critics have interpreted the human-machine relationship in a much more positive, symbiotic light. In an analysis published by ''First Person Scholar'', Ian Faith argued that the machines successfully create a "hybrid ecology" where the distinctions between organic and synthetic life, as well as [[natural selection]] and [[artificial selection]], become arbitrary. Rather than viewing the hunting of machines as pure [[Exploitation of labour|capitalist exploitation]], Faith wrote that the human tribes practice a healthy [[symbiosis]] with the mechanical ecosystem. By using every part of the machine's "carcass" for clothing, weaponry, and cultural items, the games depict a landscape where production and consumption are moderated with very little waste.<ref name="FirstPersonScholar" /> Lauren Woolbright analysed the mechanical ecosystem through the lens of [[Gaia hypothesis|Gaia theory]], noting that while the game superficially pits nature against technology, the machines ultimately demonstrate how deeply intertwined the two concepts can be when guided by an [[environmental ethics]] of care.<ref name="GaiaTheory" />

Beyond the debate over the franchise's in-game systems, critics have also observed contradictions regarding the franchise's ecological messaging within its real-world production. Scholars such as Alenda Y. Chang have highlighted the "materiality" of the machines, noting a dissonance between the game's environmentalist themes and the massive infrastructure of [[server farm]]s and hardware required to sustain the mechanical ecosystem's high-resolution textures.<ref name="PlayingNature" /> Furthermore, critics have analysed the creation of the machines as an example of the modern video game industry's reliance on globalised labour. While the overarching designs were conceptualised by Guerrilla in the Netherlands, the intricate [[3D modeling|3D modelling]] of the machines' hydraulic joints, armour plates, and internal components was extensively [[Outsourcing|outsourced]] to studios in other countries, such as [[Virtuos]] in China. ''[[The Outline (website)|The Outline]]''{{'s}} Michael Thomsen noted that the immense visual fidelity of the machines is a product of this distributed, outsourced labour pipeline that often obscures individual artistic contributions. Other critics have framed this process as the creation of "asset farms", noting that the machines' animalistic designs were actually the result of highly industrialised and standardised labour practices.<ref name="Outsourcing" />