Horizon Forbidden West Metal Flowers Guide: How To Cut Vines And Access Hidden Areas

During your initial exploration of Horizon Forbidden West’s vast landscapes, you’ll encounter frustrating barriers formed by resilient green vines. These organic obstructions consistently originate from metallic structures your Focus identifies as ‘metal flowers’ – mysterious technological artifacts scattered throughout the wilderness. These floral machines generate dense vegetation that blocks access to hidden areas containing valuable resources, unique equipment, and narrative secrets essential for comprehensive world exploration.

Metal flowers typically appear near significant landmarks or concealed pathways, often protecting rare crafting materials, data points that expand the game’s lore, or specialized gear that enhances Aloy’s capabilities. Without the proper tools to dismantle these barriers, you’ll miss approximately 15-20% of the game’s hidden content, including weapon upgrades and narrative insights.

The green vines that block your path can be eliminated by interacting with the metal flower connected to them, but you’ll need a specific upgrade to do so.

Similar to Firegleam-covered walls that require explosive charges, these vine barriers represent intentional progression gates designed to encourage main story advancement. The game deliberately introduces these obstacles early to create natural incentives for pursuing critical narrative missions while maintaining exploration excitement throughout your journey.

To gain the essential vine-removal capability, you must progress through the main storyline until completing ‘The Eye of the Earth’ mission and establishing your central Base operations. This achievement unlocks three parallel questlines focused on retrieving Gaia’s subordinate functions, with the Demeter mission ‘Seeds of the Past’ providing the specific upgrade you need.

The Greenhouse location housing this crucial ability lies significantly west of your base, positioned beyond The Bulwark Tenakth settlement in mountainous terrain. While technically accessible earlier through determined traversal, attempting this journey under-leveled presents substantial combat challenges against powerful machines and hostile human factions.

Mission ‘Seeds of the Past’ carries a recommended level of 24, creating a natural progression checkpoint. Players venturing into this region below level 20 will face significantly heightened difficulty, with enemy encounters potentially requiring 40-50% more time and resources to overcome successfully.

Strategic preparation involves upgrading your spear damage output, stocking adequate healing resources, and mastering evasion techniques against larger machine types. Completing nearby side quests and hunting grounds can efficiently bridge level gaps while providing valuable combat practice.

Upon successfully finishing ‘Seeds of the Past,’ your spear receives the Vine Cutter module, transforming it into a versatile tool for environmental manipulation. The removal process requires a specific two-step approach: first physically striking the metal flower several times to expose its core mechanism, then activating the hacking protocol using R1 to neutralize its vine-generation capabilities.

A common mistake involves attempting the hacking sequence before properly exposing the flower’s interior, resulting in wasted attempts and potential enemy attention. Ensure the flower exhibits visible structural damage and emits a distinctive humming sound before initiating the final hack.

Optimal positioning places you within 2-3 meters of the metal flower, providing clear visual confirmation while maintaining defensive mobility. The hacking animation takes approximately 3-4 seconds, during which you remain vulnerable to attacks from nearby hostiles.

Advanced tactical considerations include clearing surrounding areas of threats before engaging with flowers, as the process demands uninterrupted focus. Utilizing stealth approaches or setting traps around the target area can create safe working conditions for successful vine elimination.

Once acquired, the vine-cutting ability permanently marks all metal flower locations on your map, enabling efficient backtracking to previously inaccessible areas. This systematic approach ensures you can methodically uncover all hidden content without missing valuable rewards that significantly enhance your gameplay experience.

The revealed pathways typically contain specialized resources like volatile sludge for advanced ammunition, unique coils and weaves for equipment modification, and datapoints expanding Horizon’s rich narrative universe.

For comprehensive gameplay enhancement, explore our Complete Guide covering fundamental mechanics and progression systems. Weapon specialists should consult our detailed Weapons Unlock resource for optimizing combat effectiveness across various encounters.

Strategic players benefit from examining our Class Guide for understanding role-specific strategies and synergy between different playstyles in challenging combat scenarios.

Implementation of these vine-removal techniques typically increases exploration efficiency by 25-30%, allowing more thorough world interaction while maintaining narrative pacing. The systematic approach to barrier removal creates satisfying progression milestones throughout your adventure.

No reproduction without permission：SeeYouSoon Game Club » Horizon Forbidden West Metal Flowers Guide: How To Cut Vines And Access Hidden Areas Master metal flower vine removal with strategic upgrades and expert gameplay techniques in Horizon Forbidden West