Horizon Zero Dawn’s Stunning 20XX Live-Action

It has already been over a year since Horizon Zero Dawn live-action has been announced and confirmed to be in production. However, not much info has come out yet on the project even after such a long time. Sony’s been kind of on a roll lately. While they haven’t had strong game releases for the past 2 years, their TV adaptations and movies have been kicking in high gear. One example is The Last of Us from HBO. Which already won best adaptation from The Game Awards 2023 just a few days ago.

It also reached into the shortlist category of several Emmy nominations, including for Outstanding Drama Series and Outstanding Actors/Actresses in both lead and guest roles. To be exact, TLOU got as far as 24 nominations in various categories itself. Will we be seeing Horizon Zero Dawn achieve the same feats as this show? Or even reach the heights of the recent Netflix live-action masterstroke One Piece? For now, it isn’t a clear case since nothing of production has been shown or heard from yet.

One of the best-selling video games – Horizon Zero Dawn – is finally entering the streaming service sometime soon. After HBO’s The Last of Us, it appears as though Netflix also is genuinely seeing video game adaptations in a new light though they already have one in The Witcher. With the streaming giant involved in the production and distribution, Steve Blackman who has helmed The Umbrella Academy, and wrote for Fargo season 2, will be the showrunner for the live-action series.

What Is Horizon Zero Dawn?

Released in 2017, Horizon Zero Dawn is a Sci-Fi action game taking place in a post-apocalyptic setting where most humans became extinct after a rogue A.I. went berserk. What was left were robotic creatures thriving with surviving flora and fauna, and tribal humans hunting them for spare parts to use.

Taking place at a millennial after the event, players take control of Aloy, who is an outcast from a village placed between Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah within the former United States. After seeing the robot animals go berserk in what’s being called Derangement, Aloy investigates and finds old remains of human civilization. From here, she goes on a quest using the device she obtained from there.

Raised by an older outcast, after an attack on her village by cultists, he risked his life to save her. This has set her journey as a seeker, named by the Matriarch, tasking her in the pursuit to find those who brought harm to her and her family. She uncovers a lot, like her origins, what happened to the world, and how the state of the planet is connected to the machines while restoring balance. A quintessential lone warrior/savior.

The Allure Of Its World

Horizon Zero Dawn is the latest game series from Guerrilla Games who’ve previously made Killzone and subsequent sequels. A lot of it was based on early conceptualization following Killzone 3’s release before small team prototypes were made with 20 different story ideas. They prioritized the entire team to it in 2013.

John Gonzales, who was the lead writer for Fallout New Vegas, was hired as narrative director with Ben Shaw as the writer. It shows how the storytelling prowess of Horizon Zero Dawn manages to create both an amazing world and characters within an ambitious premise. Despite seeming like a simple “hero saves the world” journey, it has incorporated depth and a sense of discovery throughout.

The other element that greatly complemented Horizon Zero Dawn was its visual art style, where it has the usual Guerrilla Games trademark of amazingly industrialized machines drawn, sinewy minute details across. When it came to Sci-Fi, they knew what they were doing as they were on top of everything regarding this theme.

Their in-house game engine, at the cutting edge of creating visually captivating worlds, led to the Killzone series being recognized as PlayStation’s best-looking FPS game throughout the early generations. Seamlessly blending prehistoric hunting and gathering in a futuristic setting, Aloy uses various kinds of weapons to fight, hunt, and gather resources from the artificial wildlife created by the machines. 

Future Success Story?

Now let’s be real, Sony has been investing a good chunk for development into television and movies. This has gone on for several years now, right after releasing an Uncharted live-action film, and a Ratchet n Clank movie connected to the game’s story, they saw more lemons to take. More IPs to reap from. And in came Horizon Zero Dawn, a sure-fire success project if they don’t mess it up, to be honest.

Last year, we had a Gran Turismo movie filmed by the ‘District 9’ director. This year, two shows, the aforementioned HBO one, and Twisted Metal live adaptation TV show from Peacock. The movie, even with a meager budget of 60 million, managed to rake in twice that.

TLOU has been highly lauded, with a lot of viewership, and Anthony Mackie just won’t stop talking about his show, quite literally in fact. I mean, money follows success stories, so if there’s one good indication here is that with Netflix, budget and scope could really be grand enough to meet the vision and standard we expect for Horizon Zero Dawn live-action. Plus, with the resume of the showrunner, it’s easier to believe in the good.

What We Know About Horizon Zero Dawn Live-Action So Far?

Although the live-action adaptation of Horizon Zero Dawn has been confirmed to be in production for over a year now nothing of note is really known at this point. Nothing tangible has been shared about its progress, nor is its existence so far. There are also multiple reports of the story being altered from its source material, taking place in 2074 instead of millennia later. Heck, they might take more creative luxuries and pull a loose adaptation.

I keep seeing Horizon 2074 in every article or even the name being reverted to Horizon Zero Dawn or so on. No exact information on the cast, who’s playing the lead role, and maybe even the production company behind it. Leading many things to speculation at the moment. Those aside, if the show does get made, I can only hope that they’ve learned from their mistakes in the games.

Some of the story decisions they’ve made, including from Forbidden West, kind of left it feeling underwhelming. With little to look forward to in the future, which might change when the show kicks in. Especially around her romantic interest, I feel like that could have been more fleshed out instead of being a DLC drop story event made canon.