The location shown in the King's Peak vantage point matches the real world location of Kings Peak in Ashley National Forest in the state of Utah.Sylens theorized this to be due to some sort of instinct. Eventually HEPHAESTUS' machines began prowling the path to the ruins, dissuading any prospective delvers. Over the years, Sylens built a workshop in front of the door and began employing a variety of methods to get through this door, such as burning, drilling and blasting, but to no avail. However a sealed door prevented him from exploring the facility beyond a certain point. The facility's destruction captured the attention of Sylens, who traveled to the still burning crater and became the first to behold the facility within after it finally cooled. Unable to fend it off, GAIA resorted to self-destructing by overloading the facility's fusion reactors, resulting in an enormousВ explosion that destroyed the facility and split the mountain asunder, and was heard even in the Carja capital Meridian and the Oseram tribal lands, The Claim. On becoming a true AI, HADES tried to seize control of the terraforming system. Nearly 1,000 years after going online, a mysterious external signal unshackled GAIA's nine subordinate functions, including HADES, whose function was to reverse any unsuccessful terraforming attempts so that GAIA could make another attempt. The other Alphas were subsequently murdered by Ted Faro, FAS' founder, owner and chairman, who had become unstable, presumably due to his guilt over responsibility for the Faro Plague.

There they remained, putting the finishing touches on GAIA, until Sobeck sacrificed her life to prevent the Faro Plague from detecting GAIA. However, GAIA's creator Elisabet Sobeck and her team, designated the Alphas of the project, were forced to permanently seal themselves in the facility to finish work on the AI. The facility was converted and, on its completion, GAIA was moved to it. FAS founder, owner and chairman Ted Faro, the main party responsible for the robots' creation, had been forced to bankroll the entire project and thus footed the bill for the conversion. The site chosen was FAS' R&D facility, King's Peak. Part of Zero Dawn was the selection of a site at which to build the facility that would secure GAIA (the main A.I.) from detection by the Faro Plague. Zero Dawn was an above top-secret project to create a fully automated global terraforming system managed by GAIA, assisted by a suite of nine of subordinate functions, that would brute-force the Faro Plague's deactivation codes, shut the robots down, restore the Earth's ability to sustain life, and then restore life itself, including humans. Due to a glitch, the robots went rogue and eventually overran the planet, exterminating all life and leaving the Earth sterile. The Faro Plague was a rogue swarm of combat robots developed in the mid-21st century by Faro Automated Solutions. Finally, in the facility's main control room she found the remains of the Alphas themselves, and viewed a holographic recording of their murder by Ted Faro. She also found datapoints evincing Ted Faro's increasing instability and fevered resolve to 'save' the new world from accessing what he cameВ to believe was the 'disease' of pre-extinction knowledge. She also found a memorial to Elisabet Sobeck, who sacrificed her life to repair a port seal that would have alerted the Faro Plague to GAIA had it remained unrepaired, as well as personal tributes to Sobeck by the Alphas and Ted Faro after the incident. While exploring the ruin, Aloy found several datapoints left by Sobeck's team of Alphas detailing their reactions to having to be permanently sealed into the facility. There are doorways that lead to similar drops where the room or corridor beyond the doorway was split away by the explosion. Traversal of these gaps risks a fatal fall into the vast, deep chasm below. The ruin itself consists of chambers and corridors, many of which were split by the explosion that destroyed the facility. Indeed, only two people are known to have reached it: the maverick wanderer Sylens, and, years later, the Nora huntress Aloy.

The route's difficulty and danger dissuade curious delvers and explorers from trying to reach the ruin. This route, known as the Bitter Climb, is prowled by ferocious machines, including Redeye Watchers, Glinthawks, Stalkers, Ravagers and a Stormbird. The only known means of accessing the ruin is through a demanding climb up two cliffs and crossing two plateaus, one rocky, and the other covered in ice and snow and lashed by a snowstorm.

Gaia project solo walkthrough