Horizon Zero Dawn was a game that came out of Guerrilla Game’s desire to create something new. Prior to this game’s release, the studio had made a series of successful first-person shooter games in the form of Killzone. Horizon Zero Dawn was different from Killzone in every single way, right down to its main protagonist.
Aloy, the hero of the story, is already turning out to be a fan favorite. Her demeanor, bravery, and affinity for knowledge have made fans fall in love with this character the more they learn about her. She’s not only as badass as the fiercest warriors, but she’s also as curious as the most information-hungry scholar.
10 Aloy’s Character Model And Voice
Aloy was modeled after a Dutch actress named Hannah Hoekstra. Interestingly, Hannah only became the facial model for Aloy a few months before the game was revealed at E3. Producer Jochen Willemsen discovered the actress while he was watching TV at home and saw her on-screen. Aloy’s voice, on the other hand, is credited to another talented actress.
Young Aloy was voiced by Ava Potter, while adult Aloy is voiced by Ashly Burch. Prior to working on Horizon Zero Dawn, Ashly had formerly lent her voice on a handful of video games such as Borderlands, Rise of the Tomb Raider, and Life is Strange.
9 Aloy’s Name
While there is no official statement from the creators of the game on the origins of Aloy’s name, there are a bunch of assumptions on this that actually seem to make sense.
Aloy’s name could very well be inspired by H.G. Wells’ book called The Time Machine where a man travels forward in time and encounters a more advanced race of humans called the “Eloi.” Another fair assumption is that Aloy’s name could be a deviation of alloy, a material that’s a result of the combination of different metals. Interestingly, Rost’s name could also be a deviation of rust, making Aloy and Rost a play on “alloy and rust”.
8 Aloy’s DNA Is Not 100% Identical With Elizabeth Sobeck’s
When Aloy is scanned at various areas of the map, the scans only identify Aloy to be 94.47% identical to that of Elizabeth Sobeck, her genetic blueprint. Despite being Elizabeth’s clone, Aloy is not shown to be an exact copy of her. This is a very commendable level of attention to detail by the developers. In biology, whenever a lifeform is cloned, the clone will not always be a 100% identical match with that of its source. In coated animals, a sheep’s clone may have a different coat color with that of its genetic blueprint. Similarly, Aloy is not 100% identical to Elizabeth Sobeck.
7 Aloy Is Inspired From Other Strong Female Fictional Characters
Mathijs de Jonge, the game director of Horizon Zero Dawn, has stated in an interview that while creating the world of the game, they wanted a lead that was strong enough to match the harsh environments and the hostile, intimidating robots. For inspiration, they turned to Sarah Connor for the Terminator movies and Ripley from the Alien franchise.
Additionally, Ygritte from Game of Thrones was also used as an inspiration when creating Aloy. Interestingly, both Aloy and Ygritte do share a few similar characteristics, from the choice of weaponry, the color of hair, and facial features.
6 Aloy’s Physical Appearance
When designing Aloy’s physical appearance, the team at Guerilla Games wanted to make Aloy as realistic as possible. To make Aloy feel just a little bit more grounded and real, they made sure her body type wasn’t designed to feel too “unrealistic” and “exaggerated” similar to how other female characters are designed. According to the creators, it wouldn’t make sense to give her the body of a supermodel because nobody looks like that realistically anyway.
Instead, they gave Aloy a very realistic body, one people would expect from a real person who’s physically active and strong. It’s very similar to that of a woman who constantly engages in physical activities rather than the body of a woman people see in magazines.
5 A Female Protagonist
When creating the game, the team behind Horizon Zero Dawn always knew they were going to place a female character in the lead. When discussing this idea with Sony, a higher-up at the company contemplated if that was going to be a good decision.
For the sake of settling this discussion, the development team and Sony hired a group of market researchers to determine whether or not the public was concerned with what the gender of the protagonist will be. As it turns out, everybody couldn’t care less. For as long as players are treated with a decent game, it doesn’t matter if they’re playing a male or a female character.
4 Aloy Was Designed To Connect To The Players
One of Aloy’s main character attributes is her proclivity towards curiosity and her passion for discovery. The creators made her as such in order to make the players really connect with her. The fact that Aloy has never explored her world beyond their tribe’s borders and is just as oblivious to its deeper mysteries were also done purposefully. This way, whenever the players are in awe after discovering a new location, discovering new machines, or learning new things about her past and the cause of the state of the world, it’s a new discovery for Aloy as well.
3 Elizabeth Sobeck’s “Perfect Child”
In a conversation between Elizabeth Sobeck and the artificial intelligence GAIA, the former revealed that if she were to have a child, she’d want her to be curious, willful, compassionate. She’d want her child to have “enough compassion to heal the world.”
In an interesting turn of events, that’s exactly what Aloy turned out to be. She is curious. She was able to figure out how to bypass a machine’s code and turn it into an ally. She is incredibly willful, having done the things she knew was right even though society deemed it wrong. She is compassionate. Even though all her life she was shunned, shamed, and even attacked by her tribe, she was still willing to put her life on the line on multiple occasions in order to protect it.
2 Aloy In Other Games
When Horizon Zero Dawn came out, the love towards Aloy became vast and wide. Now a popular figure in the gaming community and in pop culture, Aloy has made a few appearances in other games as well. Aloy’s first appearance outside of Horizon Zero Dawn is in Monster Hunter: World, where collecting and equipping a complete armor set will allow players to equip Aloy’s Nora Brave armor along with her overall skin. She also appeared as an Easter egg in Hideo Kojima’s latest game Death Stranding where she is shown as a hologram alongside a watcher and a tallneck.
1 From Motherless Outcast In A Matriarchial Tribe To A Spiritual Figure
Aloy’s journey all throughout Horizon Zero Dawn is very interesting and heroic, to say the least. She basically started out as a nobody. A motherless outcast in a tribe that highly practices matriarchy. She eventually made her way into the tribe, became accepted, and earned a reputation of being brave, skillful, and heroic. At the end of the game, she was practically seen as a spiritual figure. A member of the tribe who’s worthy to meet and commune with the god of their land. From an outcast to a hero, from a monster to a god.
Aloy’s story is very similar to that of classical fiction, where a character from nowhere with nothing to their name embarks on a great adventure to become the greatest hero of their generation.
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