The Glinthawk is a recurring Acquisition Class machine in the Horizon series, first appearing in Horizon Zero Dawn, and returning in The Frozen Wilds, Horizon Forbidden West, Burning Shores, Horizon Call of the Mountain, Horizon Steel Frontiers and Horizon Hunters Gathering.

History

Development

Glinthawks were designed by Zero Dawn's governing artificial intelligence GAIA as a flying scavenging machine, being used to break down destroyed machines or carry them off for recycling. Two models of Glinthawk were made: Frost Glinthawks and Fire Glinthawks. Frost Glinthawks can be found across the Cut, the Sundom, the Valleymeet, the Stillsands, and southern No Man's Land, while Fire Glinthawks can only found in southern No Man's Land and the Burning Shores.

Pre-Derangement

Before the Derangement, all other Zero Dawn machines, including Glinthawks, were docile, fleeing from the sight of humans.

During Araman and his followers' exile from their original tribe, the wandering Carja followed the flight of Glinthawks overhead, eventually seeing one perch on top a MINERVA transmission array, which they dubbed the Spire. The Spire's shadowing landing on a nearby mesa marked the new home of the Carja.^[1]

Hunters took notice of the Glinthawks' tendency to flock to destroyed machines, often using them as bait to lure Glinthawks in to be hunted.

Post-Derangement

At the advent of the Derangement, almost all machines started becoming increasingly aggressive towards humans, including the Glinthawk. By the time of Aloy reaching adulthood, Glinthawks are aggressive to humans on sight.

Horizon Zero Dawn/Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds

Residents of Lone Light noticed an increase of Glinthawks near their settlement and frequently attacking them, to which Ilsadi requested the Hunters Lodge for help when the guards of Morning Watch refused to help anymore. When Talanah and Aloy came to investigate, Aloy found Vashad and Omas nearby leaving several Snapmaw carcasses out, which were attracting the Glinthawks. After Aloy either got the hunters to leave or killed them, the danger the Glinthawks were posing to Lone Light was lessened.^[2]

Ranaman used a lure to attract a flock of Glinthawks and other machines to his father's estate, in order to kill his father and sister Daradi, so that he would inherit the estate as the only living family member. While their father was killed, Daradi was spared as she was locked in the larder. Aloy came to destroy the machines, and if she found his lure and asked Daradi about it, Ranaman would arrive with a second lure, which attracted more Glinthawks, one of which killed him. Aloy then destroyed the remaining Glinthawks.^[3]

While running away after stealing from Gulahni, Dekamin was attacked by some Glinthawks, believing that they were the Sun's judgment for stealing. He was then saved by Aloy.^[4]

Aloy was tasked with destroying the Glinthawks on the Sun's Climb for Kimik to safely traverse and paint a Banuk painting in tribute to fallen shamans during the Red Raids.^[5]

The renegade Oseram warlord Dervahl used another machine lure to summon a flock of Glinthawks to kill Aloy after she prevented him from killing the Sun-King Avad. However, Aloy prevailed against them.^[6]

Aloy destroyed some Glinthawks while searching for Uthid in the Greenclimb.^[7]

With the spreading of corruption southwest of Meridian, some Glinthawks and Scrappers became corrupted. They were subsequently destroyed by Aloy.

Pitchcliff found itself incessantly attacked by flocks of Glinthawks. Upon investigating, Aloy found the Carja trader Shahavad, desperately trying to turn off a machine lure. Aloy then destroyed the lure, stopping the attacks.^[8]

Aloy came across an inactive Tallneck that was being broken down by some daemonic Glinthawks and Scrappers. After fighting off the machines, as well as retrieving the Tallneck Actuator from one of the Glinthawks, Aloy was able to reawaken the Tallneck.^[9]

Glinthawks were among the machines attacking Ikrie and Mailen as they attempted to gain admittance to the White Teeth werak, which were eventually destroyed by Aloy and Ikrie.^[10]

On her way up the Cloud-Shear to find Inatut, Aloy fought off yet another flock of Glinthawks.^[11]

Corrupted Glinthawks were among the machines used by the Eclipse to attack Meridian to allow HADES access to the Spire. The corrupted Glinthawks were destroyed by Aloy and some Oseram wielding Oseram Cannons.^[12]

Horizon Call of the Mountain

Ryas encountered and fought Glinthawks several times during his missions.

Horizon Forbidden West

Aloy, Jaxx and Sokorra found Riverwatch being broken down by Glinthawks with Burrowers on guard. Regardless, Aloy found the cache she was looking for within Riverwatch and escaped.^[13]

While searching an island near Salt Bite for Bird Eggs, Aloy either fought off or avoided a flock of Glinthawks.^[14]

Kivva's outpost was attacked by Glinthawks while Aloy was searching Ezekko's post. Upon her return, Aloy helped to destroy them.^[15]

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores

As they escaped from Starlight Rise, Aloy and Seyka fought off a group of Glinthawks, Skydrifters and Sunwings.^[16]

Appearance

A Glinthawk has a distinctly avian appearance, resembling a vulture. Its wings, tail, legs and feet armor plating that resembles feathers and avian wings, tail, legs, and feet. The general appearance of the chassis resembles that of a vulture. The beak is composed of an upper mandible equipped longitudinally with an array of rotary cutting tools, a lower mandible equipped with a longitudinal saw-like cutting tool, and a pair of lateral mandibles, each equipped with a rotary cutting tool. This complex mechanism is highly efficient at cutting, grinding and processing parts and resources from the chassis of destroyed machines. A pair of optical sensor arrays is located in the same position as a vulture’s eyes. An armored Freeze sac containing Chillwater, is positioned on its breast, presumably as part of a cooling system that prevents excessive heat buildup in the beak’s cutting tools during scavenging. Some Glinthawks have a Blaze sac rather than a Freeze one.

Behavior

Glinhawks congregate in flocks of 3 or 4, perched on or circling above high areas such as cliffs, mountains, and mesas. Flocks are found in every known tribe’s territory. Being aerial, they can easily see destroyed machine chassis, in which case they will alight on it and scavenge it, or humans, in which case they will attack. Upon spying a perceived threat or hearing a loud unusual noise, they fly in and hover over the area to investigate.

Abilities

Glinthawks employ ranged elemental attacks in which they fire or drop elemental projectiles from their elemental sacs at a perceived threat while hovering. The element the Glinthawk employs varies depending on its variant, such as Fire and Freeze. The only element Glinthawks can deploy in Horizon Zero Dawn is freeze. They tend to bombard the aggressor with projectiles of their element by either directly throwing or dropping them. Hovering at close range, they resort to a melee attack in which they swoop down, slashing with the claws on their feet.

Weaknesses

Depending if the player encounters Fire or Freeze Glinthawk, their weakness is the opposite element. Firing a single Fire or Freeze arrow on a Glinthawk will cause it to fall out of the sky, incapacitating it and making it vulnerable to critical strikes.

Attacks

Horizon Zero Dawn

Name	Damage Type	Primary Damage	Secondary Damage	Trigger Range	Description
Freeze Cloud	Freeze	20	30 per second	0m - 100m	Four freeze projectiles shot at enemy
Freeze Spit	Freeze	60	30 per second	0m - 150m	Carpet bombing drop of four freeze projectiles
Claw Slash	Melee	160	-	7.5m - 18.5m	Swooping slash at enemy with claws on feet

Horizon Forbidden West

Name	Windup	Stance	Damage	Damage Area	Trigger Range	Description
Elemental Spit	Short	Flying/Perched	/ 151 / 37 buildup	/ 10/s / 10/s buildup	0m - 150m	Spits elemental projectiles that explode on impact and leaves a damaging residual pool of matching element. Often spits multiple projectiles. Attack disabled when Drenched.
Bombing Run	Long	Flying	/ 151 / 37 buildup	/ 10/s / 10/s buildup	0m - 100m	Rises up while hovering, then flies in a straight trajectory while dropping a series of elemental bombs directly below. Each bomb explodes on impact and leaves a residual damage area of the matching element. Attack disabled when Drenched.
Claw Slash	Short	Flying	137 Melee	-	7.5m - 26m	Rises up while hovering, then swoops down to slash multiple times with talons. Attack disabled when Slowed.

Components

Horizon Zero Dawn

Component	Image	Information	Weakness	Strength
Body		Hard outer casing to protect synthetic muscle and operational systems.	None	None
Beak		Destroying this component disables the Glinthawk's ability to scavenge loot from machine corpses.	Tear	None
Sac		Destroying this component disables the ranged elemental attack and triggers an elemental explosion.	All	None

Horizon Forbidden West

Name	Variant	Image	Description	Attributes
Body	All		Hard outer casing to protect synthetic muscle and operational systems.	None
Beak	All		Serrated beak for salvaging machine carcasses. Detach or destroy to disable this ability.	Detachable Ability Removal Destroyed When Killed Key Upgrade Resource
Chillwater Sac	Frost Apex		Chillwater storage. Destroy to disable Frost attacks or leave intact to add loot to the carcass.	Explosive Attack Removal Persists When Killed Contains Resources If Intact
Blaze Sac	Fire		Blaze storage. Destroy to disable Fire attacks or leave intact to add loot to the carcass.	Explosive Attack Removal Persists When Killed Contains Resources If Intact

Variants

Variant	Weak Vs.	Strong Vs.
Frost Glinthawk	Fire Shock	Frost
Fire Glinthawk	Frost Shock	Fire
Apex Glinthawk	Fire	Frost Shock

Loot

Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Forbidden West

Gallery

See Glinthawk/Gallery

Trivia

• They are attracted to destroyed machines similar to the Scrapper.
• When on fire or if hit in the Sac, Glinthawks fall to the ground and stop attacking temporarily.
• If allowed to do so, a flock of Glinthawks will strip all of the valuable/useful resources from the chassis of a destroyed machine, and Aloy therefore will get nothing from the chassis. If the chassis is small, a Glinthawk may carry if off entirely.
  • Despite the description only mentioning scrappers, allowing a Glinthawk to scavenge a machine will produce Processed Metal Blocks that can be collected by killing the Glinthawk
• A Glinthawk appears as a glider in Fortnite Battle Royale. It uses the animation most often used by dragon-like gliders.
• During development, the Glinthawk was referred to as the Glider.^[17]
• During development of Horizon Hunters Gathering, the Glinthawk was being reworked into a support-focused machine with healing abilities, eventually evolving into a new machine called the Bloodbeak.^[18]

References

1. ↑ Founding Of Meridian
2. ↑ Hunters' Blind
3. ↑ Fatal Inheritance
4. ↑ Sun’s Judgment
5. ↑ Honor The Fallen
6. ↑ The Sun Shall Fall
7. ↑ Traitor's Bounty
8. ↑ Death from the Skies
9. ↑ Tallneck: Frostfigures
10. ↑ The Survivor
11. ↑ Frontier Justice
12. ↑ The Face of Extinction
13. ↑ A Tribe Apart
14. ↑ The Taste of Victory
15. ↑ Call And Response
16. ↑ Heaven and Earth
17. ↑ https://youtu.be/4FAXv2H-VUA, 7:20
18. ↑ Horizon Hunters Gathering Discord: The machines in Hunters Gathering feel both fresh and familiar. How did you choose which ones to include and design their attacks while staying true to the Horizon identity?

Wiki Navigation

Machines
Acquisition Class	Bilegut - Bristleback - Broadhead - Charger - Clamberjaw - Fanghorn - Fireclaw - Frostclaw - Glinthawk - Grazer - Lancehorn - Plowhorn - Rockbreaker - Scrapper - Scrounger - Snapmaw - Spikesnout - Stingspawn - Strider - Sunwing - Tideripper - Trampler - Waterwing - Widemaw
Chariot	Horus
Combat Class	Clawstrider - Corruptor - Deathbringer - Dreadwing - Grimhorn - Ravager - Sawtooth - Scorcher - Shellsnapper - Slaughterspine - Slitherfang - Specter - Specter Prime - Stalker - Stormbird - Thunderjaw - Tremortusk
Communications Class	Tallneck (HZD only)
Recon Class	Burrower - Longleg - Redeye Watcher - Skydrifter - Tallneck - Watcher
Transport Class	Behemoth - Bellowback - Leaplasher - Rollerback - Shell-Walker
Unknown Class	Bloodbeak - Control Tower - Defense Drone - Dreadclaw
Variants	Apex Machine - Corrupted Machine - Daemonic Machine