Early in Horizon Forbidden West, you'll find yourself closed off from reaching certain places by tangles of strange green vines. The vines always flow from a nearby machine--a boxy piece of metal that your Focus refers to as a "metal flower." You'll find yourself running into these metal flowers in a few places in the open world without the ability to deal with them, or to get the loot and secrets they consistently hide.

Fortunately, there's a solution to clearing the vines of Horizon Forbidden West and claiming the stuff they wall off from you. To access the metal flowers and clear the vines, you'll need a special hacking protocol for your spear, similar to what Aloy uses to Override machines. You'll get that ability from a specific place in the world, but only once you've advanced to a particular point in the game.

Here's everything you need to know about how to deal with metal flowers and their vines, and when you can expect to get your spear upgrade. Note that this post contains some extremely light spoilers for when things will happen in the game's main story, so if you want to uncover everything yourself, stop reading now.