Now that the game has been out for a while, maybe someone can tell me what "Zero Dawn" actually means in the game... Is it an important concept to the plot? Or did some marketing guy hear those two words and go "Whoa! Yes!" because he was really high at the time?

Spoiler:

It's the name of a plot-critical project that caused the entire setting in the first place

@mayu_zane: So its like the name of the top secret government project that makes robot dinosaurs? I guess that makes sense.

It's not, but it is a code name for something important in the game and it makes contextual sense.

The robotic wildlife (only a handful of the 20+ "species" are actually dinosaur analogues) is just a byproduct of project Zero Dawn, not the purpose of it.

Full story spoiler:

The military was increasingly using robots instead of soldiers to fight wars. The robots (surprisingly...) suddenly glitched out and started ignoring command. The robots were also using biomass to fuel themselves, meaning they would strip the planet bare of any life. As the people in charge realize what's about to happen the concept of "day 0" (like in a countdown) emerged as a descriptor of the day we would no longer exist. The project Zero Dawn was initiated to try to plant a "seed" that would make it possible for life to re-emerge again, as in being a new dawn for life beyond day 0.

Zero (an)D Awn (1) . Binary code was used to make this creation.

I hope they use Quadnary code to make the sequel

@onemanarmyy: You better be careful posting that. Big Binary is watching.

@quantris: They are powerful, but i believe that if we inform the people, we can make forward progress. Good to see that you're part of the resistance Quadtris. No longer shall you be known as Bitris.

Zero Dawn is described and I like the description. Horizon is the only thing that doesn't make sense. I'm guessing it's since it's a new outlook for humanity? Because it's a generic title like "Killzone" that you can turn into a franchise?

@burncoat: When you look at the horizon you're typically looking at either dawn or dusk so it's essentially just describing the 'dawn' of a new age. Dawn: Zero Dawn would sound silly but :P

Yes, and it's pretty actually good.

@rongalaxy: I need to go find every podcast I listened to that had someone goof on the name because "lol how will they name the sequel? Two Dawn?!?!?" - now that it's out and it's a really good title and has a perfect explanation in game and see what they think now. It looks pretty obvious that going forward the series will just be called "Horizon".