Horizon Zero Dawn – How to Get the Shield-Weaver Armor, Ancient Armory Quest
As you make your way through Horizon Zero Dawn, you’re bound to come across an assortment of different outfits for sale by the various merchants that roam the lands of the new world. One particular outfit is hidden away, though, and will require you to find several different Power Cells to unlock it.
In this article we’ll go over how to complete the Ancient Armory quest, find all of the Power Cells, and unlock the Shield-Weaver Armor in Horizon Zero Dawn.
How to Get the Ancient Armory Quest
Getting the Ancient Armory quest is the easiest part of this entire journey. To obtain the quest all you will need to do is find a Power Cell, or make your way to the Bunker where the armor can be found. To find the Bunker, we’d suggest climbing the first Tallneck you encounter at Devil’s Thirst.
This will fill in the map surrounding it. Then, you should be able to find the Bunker just northwest of the merchant and campfire that we’ve marked on the map below.
Head to the Bunker and enter it to discover the armor behind some glass. If you head over to the right you’ll find several dials, two of which are unpowered, that you’ll need to solve.
Before you can solve them, though, you’ll need to find the two power cells.
Power Cell Locations – Open First Door
To find the first two Power Cells you’ll need to have completed the game up to the completion of the quest, The Womb of the Mountain.
The first Power Cell can be found within the first set of Ruins that you explore when playing as the younger Aloy, near the start of the game. You can’t find the Power Cell until after you have grown up, though.
Once grown, return to the Ruins (which are east of Mother’s Watch), and explore them until you located an opening blocked by several stalagmites and stalactites. Break the barrier and head inside to find the Power Cell on the ground.
The second Power Cell you need can be found in All-Mother mountain, which you get to explore during the quest The Womb of the Mountain. Look around the area until you spot a room with a massive locked bunker door with a bright red hologram on it. Turn to the left here and look down to spot a tunnel that leads you to the next Power Cell.
Now that you have the first two Power Cells, return to the Bunker and interact with the unlit dials to turn them on. From here you must solve a puzzle, the clues of which are hidden on the wall area to the right. Use your Focus to spot the answers.
In this instance, the dials on the wall correspond to clocks, and you need to set them up according to the information on the wall to the right.
The correct solution is up, right, down, left, up (from left to right).
With the dials put into place, the first door will open revealing that the armor is held in place by several clamps. To obtain the armor, you’ll need to find three more Power Cells (which power dials on the far left side of the room), and then solve another puzzle.
Power Cell Locations – Open Clamps
The first Power Cell needed to open the clamps can be found during the quest Maker’s End. Once you reach the top of Faro’s Skyscraper, and more about Elizabet is revealed to you, look for another path that leads higher up the skyscraper. Climb all the way to the top to find this Power Cell. Thankfully, there’s a rappel hook that will let you get down quickly.
The second Power Cell for the clamps can only be found during the quest Grave-Hoard. Once in the main foyer of the ruins, look around until you spot this Power Cell waiting to be claimed.
The final Power Cell, and the last thing keeping you from your new armor, can be found in the quest The Mountain That Fell. Make your way over to Gaia Prime. After the hologram depicting Faro chatting with the scientists fades, look around for the way forward, which happens to be a zipline. Don’t cross the zipline yet, though. Instead, keep an eye out for a path that leads down to a cave, where you can climb down and find this Power Cell in the lit room below.
With these three Power Cells in place, head back to the Bunker and light up their respective dials. Unlike the first puzzle, these dials don’t depict time, instead, the clues (which can again be read using Aloy’s Focus) depict various degrees.
The correct solution to unlock the clamps is as follows:
Right, left, up, right, left (from left to right).
With the clamps unlocked, head inside and interact with the armor to receive the Shield-Weaver Treasure Box. Open up your inventory and open the box to obtain the outfit, just make sure you have room in your Outfit Satchel. If you don’t, take a look at our guide on how to expand your inventory space to learn more about that.
You can return to our Horizon Zero Dawn guide for more articles like this, where we teach you things like, how to fast travel, how to get the best weapons, and more.
