In an interview with Tudum – Netflix’s perfectly named entertainment blog – Steve Blackman says that Aloy will be the main character in the upcoming TV adaptation of the PlayStation game made by Guerrilla Games.
He said this during an interview about the fourth and final season of Umbrella Academy. Blackman is the creator of Umbrella Academy and is also the showrunner for the Horizon Zero Dawn TV series on Netflix.
Horizon Zero Dawn is an exceptionally well-crafted game with wonderful characters not often seen in the rank-and-file of the gaming world. Guerrilla Games has created an incredibly lush and vivid world of man and machine who find themselves on a collision course to oblivion.
Their salvation comes in the form of a young female warrior named Aloy, who has no idea she’s the key to saving the world. Suffice it to say, yes, Aloy will be a main character in our story.
My writing partner on this, Michelle Lovretta, and I are thrilled to be able to expand this remarkable IP into a series for all types of viewers.
Steve Blackman.
A Little Bit About Horizon (Not The Facebook One)
Back in May, news came to the surface that a live-action TV series based on the highly acclaimed PlayStation game, Horizon Zero Dawn, had been greenlit. You can check out our coverage of it here.
Horizon Zero Dawn, its sequel Horizon Forbidden West, and its expansion are often praised for their writing, storytelling, and endearing characters. In addition to the gorgeous graphic, creative enemy design, and downright enthralling gameplay.
On top of that, Aloy (despite the Nora), the main character of the series, has to be one of the most beloved characters in video games.
Here’s The Rub.
Aloy is an established character in an established video game, with an established story. Any deviation would make it not part of the canon, turn off fans, and might as well have been an original series using another IP instead.
Case and point: Resident Evil. The Mila Jovovich movies are only Resident Evil by name, Welcome to Racoon City is an abomination stitched together using plots from two games, and Resident Evil the Netflix series’ only saving grace is Lance Reddick.
Reddick is so awesome, he is the best thing in the show despite being miscast as the usually blond, sunglasses-wearing, and caucasian Albert Wesker.
He also plays Sylens in Horizon (the game, not the one with Zuckerberg), one of the many side characters that would have been great as the protagonist of the TV series. There’s even a whole other timeline, stories before the apocalypse, that the show could tell. Anything but Aloy.
We can only wait and see. As the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. Hopefully, the TV deputation of Horizon will be Sonic the Hedgehog-like (2020 movie) success, and not a Super Mario Bros (1993 movie) trainwreck.
