Early Embrace Escape

General

The Early Embrace Escape, also known as just Embrace Escape, is a glitch in Horizon Zero Dawn possibly found by Alice in late 2020. It involves walking against a "Can't Enter This Location" wall in a specific way to clip through and exit the Embrace earlier than you are supposed to. The glitch was later brought back into the community's attention when it was used for a new Abs% route by Fleur_Bleue101.

Later on, multiple variations of this glitch would be found. They are listed below in the Variations section, along with detailed explanations afterward.

The original video posted by Alice:

‎

Variations

There are 4 main variations of Early Embrace Escape, the regular Embrace Escape which is used in category extension runs and is most commonly meant by the term Embrace Escape. Varl Skip, which is a rare glitch that occurs when going to first talk to Varl. Southern Embrace Escape, which is a convoluted method of escaping using a mount for invisible walls and bomb jumps that takes place near the Southern Embrace Gate. And finally the Northern Embrace Escape, which takes place further up the mountain range than the regular escape. Each of these have their own detailed sections below in the article.

‎

Early Embrace Escape

How To Perform

The Embrace Escape glitch is, as already mentioned, activated by walking against an invisible wall that gives the "Can't Enter This Location" text. As of right now, there is only 1 known spot that you can actually escape through this wall, which is located on a small rock near the North Gate.

The map location of the rock

The original version posted by Alice uses a sort of diagonal rolling against the wall in order to clip through. The common method has since shifted to aiming down and quickly walking back and forth against the wall.

The current method of Embrace Escape:

Mechanics

The Embrace Escape glitch is thought to work due to the strange collision of the rock on which the glitch is performed. After walking or rolling into the way in just the right way, the player will be teleported beyond the wall onto the ground in New Game (NG), but will be teleported to a slightly different place if playing in New Game+ (NG+). Additionally, when playing in NG+, the player may be teleported onto invisible ground beyond the wall and be stuck, and may also end up inside the rock the glitch is performed on. It is unknown why NG+ differs from NG for this glitch, as nothing should have changed. It has been theorised it has to do with learned skills or inventory, but these theories have all been disproven.

‎

Varl Skip

How To Perform

Varl Skip is a variation of the Early Embrace Escape discovered by Fleur_Bleue101 on the 3rd of November 2020. It is a rare glitch that has only been encountered a handful of times when riding your mount towards the Main Embrace Gate to talk to Varl. In order to execute this, you need to fast travel to the main embrace gate, call your mount, and quickly get on it and preserve its speed towards the gate. At this point, you may clip through the gate and skip the cutscene with Varl.

A clip of Varl Skip happening

Mechanics

Varl Skip is thought to work as a result of slow hardware, meaning that the collision of the gate does not immediately appear when it changes from intact to broken when you call your mount. This has not been proven however, and the glitch may be possible on all hardware.

‎

Southern Embrace Escape

How To Perform

The Southern Embrace Escape is a variation of Early Embrace Escape discovered by Fleur_Bleue101 on the 27th of January, 2022. It involves using a combination of Bomb Jumps and Mount Mechanics to get out of the snowy area near the southern embrace gate.

In order to escape the Embrace from the south, you need to first head up into the snowy area filled with machines where you recover Arana's spear in a sidequest. In this area, head to the right and make your way up the wall. You may need to use bomb jumps to clear some rocks. Once you make your way up, stick to the inside of the area to not get Restarted From Save by the game. head around the area through the left. Eventually, you will reach an invisible wall. Call a mount in front of you and mount it to ride through the invisible wall. Keep heading through the mountain and you will encounter another invisible wall. You can again use a mount to ride through this invisible wall. You can now head back in roughly the direction of the gate and you will be on the other side of it.

Original discovery video:

‎

Northern Embrace Escape

The Northern Embrace Escape is a variation of Early Embrace Escape discovered by Lanthardol on the 27th of January, 2022. It involves using some Mount Mechanics to clip through an invisible wall in the north of the embrace.

Original discovery video:

The rock on which to perform Embrace Escape

‎

Mechanics and Effects

A map of where CFT's will take you by Lanthy.

Upon escaping the Embrace early, the player will gain access to the full map of HZD early. This causes a few glitches, the most notable of which being CFT's. Beside that, campfires walked by in this state will not activate and will not show up on the player's map. Additionally, certain campfires will not exist on the map, such as the one at the Nora Hunting Grounds and the one closest to the Main Embrace Gate. It is theorised that this is because the player actually leaves the Embrace once during the main quests that take place then, and the developers wanted to prevent the player from getting campfires outside the Embrace early. Settlements and Gates will however still be discovered.

If the player escapes the Embrace early while having already opened the Main Gate to speak to Varl who is fighting a sawtooth, the player will be able to start the "The Warchief's Trail" main quest without actually having it. Additionally, the player will be able to play the game all the way until the Maker's End main quest without having any of the main quests required to get there. It is uncertain why the game does not spawn the Deathbringer and Eclipse Soldiers you are meant to fight at Maker's End.

If the player completes any part of the "Seeker at the Gates" main quest, such as speaking to Marea, Varl will disappear from the Main Gate and the player will be Hardlocked, meaning that it is impossible to complete the game on that file.

‎

Uses

Embrace Escape currently only has uses in the Category Extensions, primarily because of it unlocking CFT's, but also because it allows you to skip the Sawtooth, Proving and Corruptor. The glitch is used in Abs%, All Cauldrons and Dummy%. Routes have been theorised for it to be used in All Bandit Camps, but nothing has come of it as of yet.