By all accounts, it seems Sony are optimistic that the upcoming PS4-exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn will be a smash hit.
The open world RPG from Killzone developer Guerrilla Games isn’t out until March (in Europe anyway), but Sony believe it could be the companies next big franchise, following in the footsteps of flagship hits such as Uncharted.
Sony UK product manager Jon Edwards told MCV:
Nothing has been announced to date but I think there’s a lot of potential for this to be an exciting new franchise for us. We’ll just have to wait and see.
As you may be aware, Horizon Zero Dawn follows the journey of Aloy, who’s actually inspired – at least in part – by the Game of Thrones character Ygritte.
Because this is the world we live in, the bosses over at PlayStation were concerned having a female lead would be ‘risky’, despite the fact that it was always Guerrilla’s plan to include such a protagonist.
Thankfully, the team was able to proceed with Aloy in the starring role – let’s face it, a female lead in 2017 would only be a problem if you were actually raised in the 1800’s and somehow ended up in the present day when you stumbled through a magic door.
In the MCV interview, Edwards made it clear that Aloy being a female hasn’t had any effect on the game’s marketing plans, and could actually see Aloy as a ‘PlayStation icon of the future.’
He explained:
Guerrilla Games has talked about this in the past and they were very much focused on creating a curious and determined character that was believable in this new world–it just so happened that the character ended up being female. Aloy is spirited, adventurous, and driven to figure out the challenges that she comes across in this post-apocalyptic world inhabited by machines. You really buy into her as a tribal hunter, and we think that the players will really enjoy playing as her.
Horizon Zero Dawn launches on February 28 in the US, before coming to gamers in Europe a day later on March 1.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.