Frostclaw

The Frostclaw is a category of machine in Horizon Zero Dawn exclusive to The Frozen Wilds. A medium-sized Acquisition Class machine, the Frostclaw is exclusive to The Cut, and functions like an acquisition machine, however it was also designed with a dual purpose as a combat machine to actively hunt and kill humans, while being capable of highly damaging Freeze-augmented ranged and melee attacks.

History
Frostclaws were created by AI HEPHAESTUS at its R&D cauldron, Cauldron EPSILON, in The Cut. These machines were made superior to other machines in terms of armour and damage resistance, and are referred to as Daemonic Machines.

Frostclaws were designed by HEPHAESTUS as the next step in its plan to create deadly hunter-killer machines, who are programmed to actively hunt and kill humans in order to protect its terraforming machines from human predation. HEPHAESTUS also designed a larger, deadlier prototype of the Frostclaw called the Fireclaw to increase their effectiveness in hunting down and killing humans.

Appearance
The Frostclaw is ursine in appearance, with its chassis resembling a very large polar bear. However, while they are extremely formidable and deadly, Frostclaws are not as large as Fireclaws, and have considerably less capacity to sustain damage. The head ends in a pointed, toothy snout with a three-mandible jaw housing a system of grinders. A pair of optical sensor arrays is located in the same position as a bear’s eyes would be. Mounted on each forelimb are a pair of gear-like wheels, whose purpose is unknown. There is an armour-protected cryogeneration unit called a Freeze Unit on its chest, and two power cells are located on its upper back. Freeze Sacs, armored storage tanks containing Chillwater are built into its chassis, similar to Freeze Bellowbacks. However, while the Freeze Bellowback’s tanks are prominently placed on its back and throat, the Frostclaw’s Freeze Sacs are seamlessly built into its shoulders, are much more damage resistant, and generally have more armour.

Abilities
Like bears, the Frostclaw is able to adopt both a quadrupedal and bipedal stance. In either stance it employs several fast, relentless and extremely damaging Freeze-based ranged attacks and Freeze-augmented melee attacks. While their capacity to sustain damage is substantially less than that of Fireclaws, it is still formidable. Despite their huge size, Frostclaws are quite fast and agile, able to run at high speed and easily spring up high embankments. Being Freeze-based machines, they are extremely resistant to attacks from weapons that utilize Freeze. Additionally, Daemonic Frostclaws also have all of the abilities of Daemonic Machines: considerably more durable armour and damage resistance, immunity to Corruption, and they cannot be overridden.