Horizon
This page of IGN's Mass Effect 2 wiki guide is all about the Horizon level, including how to get through all combat encounters, where to find all collectibles, and pick the right dialogue choices for your playthrough.
What Triggers the Horizon Mission?
The Horizon level is a mandatory story Mission, and marks the end of Act 2 in Mass Effect 2. Since Mass Effect 2's level structure is otherwise very open, it isn't obvious what the reasons are for triggering it. This is important because once it does, you're locked out of the Galaxy Map and must complete the Horizon level before doing anything else, and Horizon marks a difficulty spike that will punish those who are unprepared.
The Horizon Mission is triggered when you complete the original four Squad Mate Dossiers: The Warlord (Grunt), Archangel (Garrus), The Professor (Mordin) and The Convict (Jack). The two DLC Dossiers, The Veteran (Zaeed) and The Thief (Kasumi) don't count. As well, you can get the core four in any order you wish.
Once you've acquired Grunt, Garrus, Mordin and Jack, then when you return to the Normandy, Kelly Chambers will tell you that the Illusive Man wants to see you in the Debriefing Room, and interacting with the Galaxy Map will only cause Joker to tell you the same thing. This means you are locked out of doing anything else until you talk to the Illusive Man, after which you're automatically taken to Horizon.
With that in mind, once you have one Dossier left to go, you'll want to start preparing for Horizon, since it represents a difficulty spike. For this guide, the last of the four Dossiers is The Convict, Jack. Prepare by Assigning Talent Points to Shepard and their Squad Mates, buying vital Research Projects from the stores on Omega and The Citadel, using Mining Probes to gather Resources, and spending those Resources on Research Projects most useful to you in the Normandy's Tech Lab.
Mission Rewards
- Experience: 1,000 XP
- Weapons: Collector Particle Beam
- Research: Biotic Damage, Heavy Skin Weave
- Mission Credits: 30,000
- Found Credits: 30,000
- Resources: 2,000 Platinum
While not a reward as such, after completing Horizon you can explore its system, Iera, in the Shadow Sea. If you're interested in mining, here's what you should look out for:
System | Location | Rich in... |
---|---|---|
Iera | Venture (first planet) | Palladium |
Talk to the Illusive Man
After you've gotten Grunt, Garrus, Mordin and Jack onto your Squad, you'll be told by Kelly (and Joker if you try to use the Galaxy Map) that the Illusive Man wants to talk to you in the Debriefing Room. That's the room with the long table located between the Armory and the Tech Lab. Use the Message Terminal on the table to get started.
The Illusive Man has urgent news for you: a human colony in the Terminus Systems, a place called Horizon, has just gone silent. If it's not under attack it will be soon, and you want to catch the Collectors in the act and save the colony. Almost as important is that your Virmire Survivor is there, so now you really want to get down there.
Following your conversation with the Illusive Man, Shepard will automatically see Dr. Solus in his lab on board the Normandy. Though little is said between the two, you'll see that the good doctor seems to have devised something that will help us avoid the paralyzing Seeker swarms while on the surface of Horizon.
The scene will then take us to the colony of Horizon. You'll witness this lush, green planet being quickly overrun by the alien Collector forces, its citizens paralyzed by the Seeker swarms. Then their leader, the Collector General, shows up by way of possessing one of his own soldiers. It seems he considers them and their harvesting of humans to be the "Harbinger of their ascension"... whatever that means.
Explore the Colony
Once the cutscene is over, you'll have control of Shepard. Move forward down the linear path and Dr. Solus will communicate with you (either from the Normandy, or in-person if he's in your Squad) about your suit upgrades, which should keep the Collectors' Seeker Swarms at bay. However we won't know for sure that it'll work until it's put to the test (don't worry -- it works).
As the linear path curves leftward, have your weapon-of-choice at the ready. You'll meet a detachment of Collectors amongst the boxes and crates in the middle of the path. Use the crates and pillars as cover as you eliminate these powerful, aggressive foes. What makes Collectors extra trouble is that they use truly alien weaponry that don't drop Thermal Clips: if you need more ammo, you have to rely on what you can find in the environment since the Collectors won't drop any!
Warp Ammo is effective, however you can only have this on Horizon if you've completed Jack's Loyalty Mission on a previous playthrough, letting you give it to Shepard as a Bonus Power during a later playthrough. For first-time players, you'll have to shoot them the old-fashioned way.
When all is quiet, explore the lower area with the boxes and pickup trucks.
- Power Cells - 100 Credits. In front of the back-most yellow pickup truck.
- Datapad - 6,000 Credits. On a picnic bench behind the pickup truck where you found the Power Cells.
As you continue further down the linear pathway from the previous area, you'll lose communications with Joker back on the Normandy.
Eventually you'll come to a valley between colony dwellings: Collectors of all kinds will attack here, so seek cover and take them out one at a time. None of them are too powerful per se, but they are equipped with strong weapons and fight aggressively. Making matters even more mysterious here is that you'll be fighting Husks. For those who didn't play the first Mass Effect, Husks are like zombies and will swarm your position in groups, forcing you out of cover.
Once everyone is down, return to the entry of this area and then face the way forwards. Enter the right-hand building on your right (marked with a red 5 on the outside wall) to find a Datapad you can Access with 4,200 Credits. Walk through to the back of the building and exit it onto the balcony. Turn left and head down the steps and up the hill: keep an eye on your right for a Dead Collector you can Examine near a picnic table: it'll give you the Heavy Skin Weave Research Data.
Continue uphill and take a right, and you'll run into a Dead Husk. Once examined, a brief cutscene will ensue with you and your chosen teammates. You can hypothesize about why the Husks are here, and why the Collectors are creating them. But one thing is for sure -- these Husks seem better... stronger... more evolved. At the end of the conversation, pick "Let's go save the colonists" for +2 Paragon Points, or "We're wasting time here" for +2 Renegade Points.
Continue forward from the Geth corpse, and you'll end up in another valley between colony dwellings, this one with much more undulating terrain. You'll also pass by Collector Pods; remember these as we'll ask you to return to them after the battle. You'll see Collectors of various types walking around ahead, but if you work your way through the dwelling on the right side, you can get the jump on them. However, the gunfire will alert the rest of the powerful Collector contingent here to your presence.
Get ready to take cover and deal with the repercussions (or should we say REAPERcussions?). The balcony at the far end of the trailer on the right is a great place to spring off from in order to deal with the enemies streaming out from the area directly in front of it, and you can try to count on your teammates to deal with the stragglers down in the courtyard area to your left. Your job isn't finished in the valley either: some more Collectors will show up in a raised plaza at the far end and to the left. Make sure to take care of them, too!
Once you're done, scour the area for goodies.
- Med Kit - 100 Credits. Return to area where the Collector Pods and face the way forwards. Look left to spot a dwelling with a glass awning above the entryway: the Med Kit is on a bed on the right wall.
- Safe - 4,800 Credits. Return to the Collector Pods and this time enter the building on the right: the Safe will be on the right-hand wall, between a glass lab container and a medical bed.
Now continue through the level and across the raised plaza: here you can Examine some Stasis Colonists: humans frozen by the Seeker Swarms who have yet to be put in pods by Collectors. Head up the stairs nearby to find more, then enter the dwelling at the top.
- Computer - 3,000 Credits. At the top of the stairs near the Stasis Colonists, head to the back of the room to find this on the bed.
Return to the Stasis Colonists, then go down the steps to the next "valley". Resting on a Collector Pod on the left is the Particle Beam Heavy Weapon. This fires a sustained beam of hurt with pinpoint accuracy, great for fans of Assault Rifles.
Now head forward for a new cutscene, where things truly hit the fan. It seems the Collector General has recognized Shepard's threat and has come to settle matters personally by possessing one of his own men, transforming them into the unit known as Harbinger. Harbinger is a dangerous foe with formidable Barrier and Armor defenses, and is able to fire biotic attacks that deal heavy damage and knock Shepard out of cover, even when hitting the other side of what you're hiding behind. You'll want to prioritize killing his agent first, then killing any other Collectors before he has a chance to possess them and re-enter the battle.
Cover here isn't as plentiful as you'd probably like, but that's okay. Remain aggressive, and keep moving closer to the Collectors, as you bounce from cover to cover. The closer you get to the enemies, the easier they will be to fell, though being close in proximity to any enemy will also make it easy for them to storm your position and cause massive damage. This might be one of the more difficult battles you've faced so far, so remain persistent, overcome those pesky barriers, and lay waste to these vanguards of your destruction.
When all is said and done, return to looking for collectibles. Go back to the Collector Pod between the two dwellings where you picked up the Particle Beam.
- Computer - 3,000 Credits. From the Particle Beam spot, look forwards to the giant AA Gun in the distance. On your right is a dwelling with a red 6 on the side: enter it and go to the far end to find the Computer on the round table in the corner.
- Power Cells - 100 Credits. Return outside and face forwards to the AA Gun again. Head to the building in the back-left corner of the area with a red 9 on it: the Power Cells are inside next to the crates.
Now look for the blast door at the end of this area on the right: enter it to bump into a survivor, Delan. As you'll find out, he's a huge skeptic of the Alliance, so it's a good thing that Shepard keeps quiet about who they are and that they're still loyal to their Alliance roots. But he does bring up the AA Defense Towers, which you can use on the Collector Ship! At the outset of this conversation, you can answer "Calm down!" for +2 Renegade Points, and later "Who are you?" for +2 Paragon Points. Further in, you can say "Wait here" for +2 Paragon Points, or "We might need your help", which lets you them pick "You're a coward" for +2 Renegade.
Get to Spaceport
When you regain control of your party, check the room for loot.
- Wall Safe - 6,000 Credits. On the wall directly behind Delan (as in the screenshot above).
- Med Kit - 100 Credits. Right behind Delan the Mechanic in the right-hand corner.
- 2,000 Refined Platinum - In the opposite end of the room, on top of a crate next to the Weapon Locker.
Use the Weapons Locker to switch out the Collector Particle Beam if you'd prefer another Heavy Weapon. Just keep in mind that you'll need to re-apply your Ammo Powers and what your two "in use" guns are, since they'll have been reset by interacting with the Weapons Locker.
As you proceed forward from the door, make a note of your surroundings: this is a vast battlefield and we'll ask you to return to the entry point for collectibles later. Up ahead, you'll encounter yet another detachment of Collector foes. This fight introduces a powerful new form of Husk known as a the Scion: he fires Shockwave explosions that travel in a line. This travels straight over all cover objects, so being nimble to move to new cover is essential against them.
When things quiet down, you'll want to explore.
- Power Cells - 100 Credits. Return to the entry of the battlefield and face the way forward. Look left to spot a building with a glass awning over the entry: head inside and walk straight through to the balcony on the opposite end. Once there, look left to spot the Power Cells on top of a crate.
- Dead Collector - Biotic Damage. From the Power Cells, turn around and re-enter the building, then go through the left-hand doorway. Go across the balcony and straight through the small building, then turn left. Go up the small steps in front of you to find the Dead Collector on your right.
- Computer - 3,00 Credits. Go to the blast door exit, then go either left or right through the corner buildings, then out and up the stairs to the upper area. In the middle of it will be the Computer.
Investigate Tower
When you enter this next region via the hacked door, dash to the right side of this large outdoor area and immediately seek cover behind the wall up the ramp there. Scions and weak Husks will appear in this area, and the latter will appear in great numbers. Don't forget that your character can use melee attacks on nearby enemies (the B button on Xbox, Circle for PlayStation), and you're likely going to need it with regularity if you find yourself inundated with Husks.
With the Husks downed, you can then concentrate on the Scions. These guys are powerful, so feel free to break out that special Collectors weapon we mentioned earlier (and that you found earlier) to take them out easily. If you're not quick in eliminating those foes, you could be in for a world of hurt. You've been warned!
Open the door, then look for the Scions: both of them are hidden behind a small wall in the middle of the area, one with its tumourous back exposed, and the other with its gun-arm poking out. You can then shoot these from a distance without retaliation (although ammo may be a problem).
If you kill the Scions with this method, then the swarm of Husks that normally accompany them will not appear. This is a HUGE boon because you'll have saved a lot of ammo, which is scarce in Horizon as you've probably noticed.
Defend the Tower
With the initial wave of Husks and Scions killed, you're going to want to first run around this outdoor area and collect any ammunition you might need: this will be the last breathing point you have before the end of the level, and this next section is tough.
- Power Cell - 100 Credits. On the far right of the Transmission Tower Computer, up some steps on the side of a building.
- Med Kit - 100 Credits. On the far left of the Transmission Tower Computer, on a slightly raised walkway.
After you've replenished your ammo, you can then Hack the Computer terminal in the center of the area. Doing so will begin the process of activating the Alliance defense system here, which will in turn be used on the Collectors' ship, hopefully destroying it. Unfortunately, as EDI will let you know, the defense system will take a little while to get online. And you know what that means -- plenty of enemy encounters in the meantime.
Harbinger will return here, so you're going to want to try and focus on him. You'll also need to deal with his crew of Husks. Remember -- these guys are quite aggressive and quite obnoxious, but also defensively weak, so try and take the time to eliminate them en masse before you focus on the Harbinger himself. As you know, the Harbinger takes a load of damage to bring down, so keep an eye on your health (and that of your Squad), and remain focused on thinning his shields and ultimately bringing him down. The two waves of foes you deal with come from separate sides of this courtyard, so adjust your positioning accordingly. Good cover is important: the area around the Computer is frightfully exposed.
The Collectors, at this point, have had about enough of your nonsense, and from their mothership comes the Praetorian, a bug-like Husk that's without question the hardest enemy in the level. In addition to multiple levels of shields and health, the Praetorian has a Barrier that refills itself automatically if it isn't damaged. after a while This complicates the battle and then some, especially when you consider how powerful the Praetorian's attacks are. And to make things worse the Praetorian will have a ground slam attack that not only releases a damaging shockwave, but can completely refill their Barrier.
Keep moving, keep your shields up, and heal if necessary. Then, when opportunities present themselves, lay into your foe (with heavy weaponry, if applicable), ultimately bringing it down to the ground. Once the mighty Praetorian has fallen, you'll witness a couple of mission-ending cutscenes. And if you're curious about the word Praetorian, yes -- it's from Roman times.
The ending cutscene will have you finally reunite with your Virmire Survivor: as noted earlier, this can be either the biotic Kaidan Alenko or the soldier Ashley Williams, depending on who you chose to save on Virmire back in Mass Effect or the Genesis comic (if you started Mass Effect 2 totally fresh, you'll have Ashley). As such, we'll refer to them as the Virmire Survivor, a popular term for whoever you saved when they appear after the first game.
The conversation is pretty lengthy, and while it's clear that they're happy Shepard is alive again, they're beyond upset that Shepard made no attempt to contact them, and that they're working with Cerberus, a pro-human group so extreme that even Ashley doesn't like them at all. Your opening response can earn you some Morality Points, so here's what you can pick:
- "You sound angry" or "It's good to see you again", the latter of which will give you +2 Paragon Points, which lets you choose one of these two responses.
- "I didn't want to hurt you" (Romance) / "Too much time has passed" for +2 Paragon Points.
- "I have important things to do" for +2 Renegade Points.
- "I was. We can't get into it" will give +2 Renegade Points.
After this, you'll have several more responses you can pick that will earn you Morality Points. As ever, here are your options grouped by Morality:
- Paragon: "Cerberus isn't the enemy", "I'm not a traitor", "You're too emotional, [Ash/Kaidan]", "Don't go. Join me" (+8 Paragon Points total)
- Renegade: I don't work for Cerberus", "Get over it", "Fat chance" (+6 Renegade Points total)
Unfortunately, nothing you say will change your Virmire Survivor from being upset with Shepard, and they'll leave with a lot of bad blood in the air. Shepard will then call in Joker, having had enough of Horizon. You will get +5 Paragon Points and +5 Renegade Points for completing the Mission, at least.
Back on the Normandy
After the conclusion of the events on Horizon, you'll be automatically transported back to the Normandy for a debriefing with the Illusive Man. It comes to light during your conversation that the Illusive Man set things up to draw both the Virmire Survivor and the Collectors to Horizon. It worked, even if two-thirds of the colonists were captured in the process. Apparently the Illusive Man considers that an acceptable loss.
During the conversation, you can again give various responses that will yield Morality Points. Here's your selection, per Morality:
- Paragon: "I didn't save everyone", "No more colonies get hit", "My team is strong" (+6 Paragon Points total)
- Renegade: "I enjoyed the fight", "Let's go on the offensive", "Don't worry so much" (+6 Renegade Points total).
Once you have full control of Shepard again, it's time to do your rounds. This is the earliest point in time where you can pick up a Loyalty Mission. Loyalty Missions are excursions that are optional, but are HIGHLY recommended you do because they go a long way to ensuring a positive outcome at the end of the game. Completing them is also required for initiating a Romance with them.
- CIC: Talk to Jacob for his Loyalty Mission, then Kelly and Joker.
- Crew Deck: There's a new exchange to hear in the Mess Hall.
- Engineering: Pop by Gabby and Ken: they'll likely talk about the Tanix Cannon or Silaris Armor if you've installed them. Also talk to Jack to learn more about her, and Zaeed for a comment on Horizon.
Post-Horizon Roadmap
At this point, you'll now have a varied future ahead of you. You'll be given three more Dossiers to complete your Squad lineup, and you'll soon learn that you'll need to resolve personal matters with your Squad in order to make sure their mind is focused and they are Loyal to the mission, and Commander Shepard.
More importantly, there is now an invisible countdown in place for the next mandatory story Mission. The exact mechanics behind this are still not 100% understood, but in general there are three parts of the countdown you need to know about:
- First, you need to have eight Squad Mates. Unless you deliberately ignore Zaeed, Kasumi and didn't awaken Grunt, all players will only need to gain one more Squad Mate after Horizon to meet this.
- Second, you need to complete five Missions and / or Side Quests, including Dossiers, Loyalty Missions, N7 Side Quests, or DLC like Overlord and Lair of the Shadow Broker. Minor Side Quests that do not have their own level, as well as the Normandy Crash Site, do not count towards this.
- Third, you must be on the Normandy, where like Horizon you'll be locked out of the Galaxy Map. You can belay this via worlds that have more than one Mission on them, like Ilium or Tuchanka, since they return you to the planet's hub area rather than the Normandy.
- The only complication is completing Miranda's Loyalty Mission: if you also did Jack's Loyalty Mission, you'll be taken to the Normandy to resolve their fight.
The Mission this takes you to is ultimately an excursion: you can return to business as usual afterwards. HOWEVER, completing it will unlock another Mission you can do that, although it isn't obvious, kick-starts the journey to the end of the game.