Now that Naughty Dog’s beloved Uncharted series has effectively been placed on ice over at Sony – barring The Lost Legacy DLC, of course – the Japanese platform-holder is in search of a new pixelated mascot to fill Nathan Drake’s boots. Enter Horizon Zero Dawn.
Due to arrive later this month for those in North America, Guerrilla Games’ bold new IP has generated a lot of buzz for its robotic dinosaurs and sprawling open world, but Sony believes it is the game’s flame-haired protagonist, Aloy, that will really resonate with players. In fact, Sony UK Product Manager Jon Edwards even went so far as to suggest that Aloy, a character loosely based on Ygritte from Game of Thrones, can go on to become a “PlayStation icon of the future.”
Not only that, but Edwards believes Horizon itself is here to stay, and has the potential of becoming an “exciting new franchise” for Sony.
“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.”
Circling back to Aloy, the PlayStation executive went on to discuss her “spirited, adventurous” nature, and why having a female protagonist never once impacted Guerrilla’s marketing strategy.
“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.”
Edwards’ comments arrive alongside a pair of new gameplay videos for Horizon Zero Dawn, which spotlight two of the robo-dinos populating Guerrilla’s post-post-apocalyptic RPG: the Behemoth (Transport Class), and the Stormbird (Combat Class).
Horizon Zero Dawn roars to life across North America and Europe on February 28th and March 1st, respectively. Meanwhile, the review embargo is reportedly set to lift on Monday, February 20th.
