Ancient Vessel - DroneHop¶

From the last Ancient Vessel, if you follow the nearby road to the north you’ll discover the Devil’s Thirst Bandit Camp. While it’s perfectly acceptable to simply wade into combat and start slaughtering Bandits, there’s an easily-missed NPC encounter nearby that’s tied to such events. Don’t cross the bridge to the camp, instead heading west along the river until a fork in the river blocks your path. Swim west across the river when you must, then turn north and swim across the stream blocking your path in this direction, too. Once across this second body of water, head uphill to the west to find a man named Nil waiting outside of this Bandit Camp… with malefic intent. Ignore him for a moment and continue west to find an Ancient Debris pile with the “Ancient Vessel - DroneHop” in it.

Clearing the Devils Thirst Bandit Camp¶

Now that you have one of the last collectibles in this area, turn your attention to Nil and talk to him. He’ll mention a missing companion before ultimately volunteering to help you clear the Bandit Camp out. Accept his help or not - he’s somewhat of a boon, and shouldn’t get in your way too much - and Nil will point out the alarm in the camp, and some prisoners. The alarm should be your first priority, and in this case, it’s actually pretty easy to take out.

Circle around to the northern end of the Bandit Camp (be wary of patrolling archers on the ground and on watch towers) and look through the gate to see the roiling green goo inside a… bladder? Whatever it is, arrows pierce it just fine, and will prevent any nasty reinforcements from showing up. The rest of the Bandit Camp is fairly simple: you just need to kill every Bandit in the area to reclaim it for the good guides… and Nil

The Sharpshot Bow works wonders here due to its range and accuracy (perhaps boosted with the “Concentration” skill?), and it’s quite easy to pick off targets in the camp from the tall grass in and around the place. If you miss, just keep calm for a few moments until they stop being suspicious and try again. Using your Focus to mark their locations really just gives you an unfair advantage here. If they do spot you, however, you possibly have Nil at your side, and are only one strong attack away from dying, at worst. The only ones that might prove the least bit troublesome are the ones in the structure in the center of the camp, which will force you to infiltrate and eliminate them in somewhat closer quarters.

Kill the Bandits and free some prisoners on the eastern end of the camp (you know, if you feel like it) and when the last Bandit breathes his (or her) last, the area will magically transform to a safe, inhabited settlement. Don’t bother with anything in the camp for now and instead return to where you met Nil outside (west of) the camp and talk to him. He’ll admit to his purely sociopathic motivations, which you’ll get to give a judgment call on. Nil will hint at meeting you later and depart.

Return to the camp and you’ll find these plenty to do, like loot the bodies of the Bandits, score the lucrative Supply Crates in the central room of the structure in the middle of the camp, and pillage a pile of Ancient Debris on a balcony southwest of the northern entrance to the same building. There’s also a Campfire, a groveler named Jom who will ask you to allow him and his fellow outcasts to stay, a merchant to do business with and another Training Dummy ( Training Dummy XX ) near the southern gate.

Vantage Point - Explorer Museum¶

There’s still a few more things to grab around Devil’s Thirst before moving on with the main story, namely two collectibles… and the first one is just outside the Bandit Camp! Exit via the camp’s northern gate and follow the road northwest until you see a column of rocks on the side of (north of) the road. Look up at them and you should see the purple eye icon indicating a Vantage Point, then circle around to the northern side of the rocks to find a spot you can climb. Atop the rocks you’ll find a Supply Crate packed with goodies and of course, the Vantage Point itself. View the hologram with [R3], then listen to the audio [Triangle] to get the “Vantage - Explorer Museum” collectible.

Banuk Figurine - My Claim¶

To get the next collectible, backtrack to the northern gate of the Devil’s Thirst Bandit Camp and follow the road northeast, ignoring all forks and diversions along the way until you reach a fork near the mountains, at which point continue east until the trail ultimately terminates in front of said mountains. Continue more-or-less east from here uphill and you should spot some bundled poles tied together with colorful rope. Climb up on the poles, mount the rope between them, then jump north, northwest onto the nearby cliff, which generously has some hand-holds for you.

Climb onto the ledge above and turn west, northwest to find a series of poles you can leap across, then turn northeast and scale the cliffs above the ledge the poles took you to. Scale another ledge to the east, northeast and leap across another series of poles, then turn north and climb the nearby cliffs. When you reach the top of this particular cliff, turn west, northwest and run across a taut rope at the end of which you’ll find the Banuk Figurine “Banuk Artifact: My Claim” . When you’ve claimed it, use the zipline to get back down to the lowlands.