Aloy (Horizon Zero Dawn)

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About

Aloy is the main protagonist and sole playable character of the 2017 video game Horizon Zero Dawn and its upcoming sequel Horizon Forbidden West. In late May 2021, the character became a subject of controversy online after her renewed design was revealed, which reworked the shape of her facial features for the second game.

Origin

On February 28th, 2017, the action role-playing game Horizon Zero Dawn, developed by Guerrilla Games, was released for PlayStation 4.^[1] The game, set in a post-apocalyptic era in which humans live in a world overrun by rogue animal-like machines, follows the story of Aloy, a young female fighter of the Nora tribe. The story revolves around Aloy's quest to find out the reason behind machines becoming increasingly aggressive and uncover the truth of the world.

Aloy is modeled after Hannah Hoekstra and is voiced by Ashly Burch.

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Redesign Controversy

On May 27th, 2021, PlayStation unveiled the first gameplay trailer for Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel to the 2017 game.^[2] In the trailer, the renewed design of Aloy was first shown (seen below).

Within five minutes of the trailer's premiere, Twitter^[3] user @Nibellion posted a still image of Aloy from the trailer, with the tweet gaining over 80 retweets and 640 likes in six days (shown below, left). Two minutes later, an unknown 4chan^[4] user posted the image to /v/ board, writing "OH NO NO NO" (shown below, right). The thread gained over 530 replies in the same timeframe.

In the thread, edits of the still image and negative comments about the change in the design were posted by 4chan^[5]^[6]^[7] users (examples shown below).

In late May 2021, multiple threads about the character were posted on 4chan's^[8]^[9]^[10] /v/ board, with users posting edits of still images from the trailer and discussing the change in the design (example shown below, left). On Twitter, a number of viral tweets about the character were posted. For example, on May 31st, 2021, Twitter^[11] user @AscendedZen made a post in which they compared Aloy to character Buzz from Home Alone, which gained over 130 retweets and 2,000 likes in 24 hours (shown below, center). On May 30th, 2021, Twitter^[12] user @IconicNephilim made a tweet complimenting the renewed design. The tweet gained over 2,400 retweets and 11,800 likes in 48 hours (shown below, right).

In late May and early June 2021, multiple news websites reported on the controversy, including articles by Comicbook^[17] and Game Rant.^[18]

"Is It Me or Sony Be Making Their Lead Female Protagonist Look Masculine As Hell" Copypasta

On May 29th, Redditor kennymc7877 made an ironic post in the /r/GamingCirclejerk^[13] subreddit in which they photoshopped a still image from the Horizon Forbidden West trailer, giving Aloy a thinner face with makeup applied. The post received over 4,100 upvotes in the /r/GamingCirclejerk subreddit in three days. On the same day, Twitter^[14] user @ApexAlphaJ praised the edit, misinterpreting it as a sincere fan attempt to improve the design, writing "Pic from the game on the left, fan-made on right. Hire fans lol" (tweet no longer available; shown below, right).

Is it me or Sony be making their lead female protagonist look masculine as hell..barely no curves or rough non feminine features..Unlike the average woman. Like *cough cough..TLOU2’s Ellie…etc. Just saying #My2cents
Pic from the game on the left, fan made on right. Hire fans lol

Starting on the same day, users on Twitter and Reddit made posts parodying the tweet, using it as a copypasta. For example, on May 30th, Twitter^[15] user @Voltaic117 made a parody tweet that gained over 1,900 retweets and 28,200 likes in two days (shown below, left). On May 31st, Redditor^[16] Proxy_RQ made a post that gained over 17,900 upvotes in two days (shown below, right).

Why Does Aloy Have a Beard

On February 14th, 2022, Twitter user @9santy1 tweeted a rendering of Aloy with the peach fuzz on her face circled, asking "why the hell does Aloy have a beard?"

The tweet soon spread on social media as Twitter users dunked on it, noting that peach fuzz is a common feature on all humans, including women, and joked that it proved the original poster was clueless about women.