The world of Horizon: Zero Dawn can be a little scary and intimidating, as there are a lot of things to do and you have robot dinosaurs on your back, which is true for a lot of open world games, minus the robot dinosaurs, of course. Thus, the following are some tips for just starting out in the game.

• Collect Everything! You will run into plenty of items to collect while you’re exploring, from plants to other materials. You never know when you will need something later on in the game, whether for crafting or trading to a merchant.
• Upgrade! It’s fairly early in the game when you realize the inventory space you start out with is not going to be enough. Thus, one of the first things you should upgrade will be the number of slots for resources, allowing you to hold onto more things. Other things you might want to upgrade are the ammo for your various weapons, as well as the number of Potions and Traps you can hold.
• Kill the Animals! In addition to finding Machines in the wild, you will also happen to spot actual animals running around. While harmless, these animals are the key to upgrading your stuff to the bigger capacities, so make it your point to kill them whenever possible. Their drops are completely random, but their skins and bones are necessary.
• Be Stealthy! Running around everywhere and getting into fights head on is not going to be a smart idea in the long run, especially once you start running into bigger and badder Machines. Sticking to the tall grass and using Lure Call to separate some Machines from the others will make it easier on you, especially when used in combination with Silent Strike. You also get some bonus experience for stealthy kills!
• Use Your Focus! Your Focus, the little device on your head that you activate with R3, is one of the most useful items in the game, despite limiting your movement. Not only does it help you locate enemy Machines, you can also use it to scan those Machines to find out their weaknesses/strengths. Also, you can locate normal animals with it, as well as certain items, even for quests.
• Early Skills! Speaking of Lure Call, it is one of the better skills to have whenever you first gain access to some skill points. That combined with Silent Strike is great for being stealthy. Other great skills to get early on include Healer, Herbalist, Concentration, Gatherer and Scavenger.
• Target the Parts! The majority of the Machines have parts on them that you can shoot off, which can either yield materials or even get rid of some of their attacks. On some of the bigger Machines, they have weapons that you can shoot off that you can even use against the very Machine itself!
• Keep Rolling! Aloy’s roll maneuver is one of the more useful skills that she has in combat and should be used very often if you’re going toe-to-toe with Machines. It is also a very handy tool in traversing around the landscape, as it seems faster than sprinting and is a lot more stealthy (unless you have the silent sprint skill).