Horizon Forbidden West has 10 Survey Drone Locations. Survey Drones are a type of Collectable. You need at least one of them for the trophy “Recovered 5 Different Collectables”. They are drones flying through the sky on predefined paths. Each drone unlocks a visual customization for Gaia’s room at The Base. You can use the wall panel to make the projectors in the room show the environment where the drone was found. There is no gameplay benefit, only this cosmetic change when you visit The Base.
The drones are always flying on the same path in an infinite loop. They cannot be shot down. Instead, you must climb up to a point from where you can jump to the drone when it stops flying for a moment. Keep hanging on to the drone to pull it down to the ground, then loot it for its module.
None of the Survey Drones are missable. You can still find all of them after the story in free-roam.
This guide lists them in the same order as the in-game Collectables Menu so you can easily reference the ones you are missing.
Survey Drone #1: No Man’s Land (Module 024)
Climb the tallest mountain at the Thunderjaw site and jump to the drone from there. Just like all drones it will always fly along the same path and stops there for a moment. Jumping on it will make it fall to the ground so that you can collect it.
Survey Drone #2: Plainsong (Module 047)
Jump to it from the ruins, you can climb up there via the nearby rocks.
Survey Drone #3: The Dry Yearn (Module 143)
Jump to it from the metal ramp on the hill.
Survey Drone #4: The Greenswell (Module 287)
Use Sunwing (flying mount, automatically unlocked in Main Quest 16: The Wings of the Ten) to fly to the top of the rocks. From there you can jump over to the drone when it stops. The top part of the rock isn’t climbable so you must fly to it. If you don’t have the flying mount yet, come back after the story, you get it automatically near the end of the story.
Survey Drone #5: The Stillsands (Module 367)
Climb up the tower of the ruins where the drone is flying. You can climb up inside the tower to reach the top. From the top of the tower you can jump to the drone.
Survey Drone #6: Thornmarsh (Module 549)
Use Sunwing (flying mount, automatically unlocked in Main Quest 16: The Wings of the Ten) to fly to the tall broken tree where the drone stops twice. Jump off the flying mount and press 
at the grapple point near the top of the tree to pull yourself up. From there you can jump to the drone. The grapple point is too high up to reach from the ground. Just come back after the story when you have the flying mount unlocked.
Survey Drone #7: The Graypeak (Module 678)
Climb the hill north of the drone icon on the map. There’s a wooden scaffolding on the hill, from there you can jump to the drone. It’s a far jump and sometimes you might not quite reach the drone. If you are having trouble. use the glider for the first bit and then close the glider when close to the drone to grab onto it.
Survey Drone #8: Stand of the Sentinels (Module 398)
Where the drone flies are some platforms around the trees. You must first walk up a fallen tree to one of the platforms, then jump from one platform to the next until you reach the last one. The drone stops there and you can jump over to it. Can also use paraglider during the jump to cover more distance.
Survey Drone #9: The Sheerside Mountains (Module 739)
Climb the mountain where the drone is flying around. When it stops at its lowest elevation level, you can jump off a wooden ramp to the drone. It’s best to use the paraglider when you jump off to fly further. It’s a far jump and the paraglider helps to cover the distance.
Survey Drone #10: Isle of Spires (Module 863)
You can jump to this drone from the yellow beam at the top of the building. You can either fly up with the flying mount “Sunwing” (automatically unlocked in Main Quest 16: The Wings of the Ten), or climb up the ledges around the building.
Reward
Return to The Base and enter the room where GAIA is. There is a wall panel where you can hand in the drones. You can also track any of the drone quests via Quests > Collectables to get a waypoint leading you there. Each drone unlocks 1 scenery for The Base that you can switch out. This is purely a cosmetic unlock and doesn’t provide gameplay benefits. There’s no other reward, it only changes what GAIA’s room at the base looks like. Each drone will change the design of GAIA’s room to the environment where the drone was found.
For everything else needed to 100% completion, check out the full Horizon Forbidden West Wiki & Strategy Guide.
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