Aloy

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Aloy
Horizon character
Aloy as she appears in Horizon Zero Dawn
First game	Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)
Voiced by	Various Ashly Burch Laura Van Tol (infant) Ava Potter (child) Giselle Fernandez (Genshin Impact)[1]

Aloy is a fictional character and the main protagonist of the video game series Horizon. In the games' post-apocalyptic tribal setting, she is born in 3021, raised as an outcast, and trains as a warrior in order to win a ritual competition to discover her mother's identity. After narrowly evading an assassination attempt, she embarks on a journey to stop a cult that worships an artificial intelligence bent on the world's destruction, while also hunting zoomorphic robots that have grown hostile to humans. She has been critically praised for her design and characterization. She is voiced by American voice actress Ashly Burch and modeled after Dutch actress Hannah Hoekstra.

Aloy was created as a character who could provide many tactical options in battle. As a "hunter at heart", she has little compassion for machines beyond a "hunter's respect". She also has a gritty personality, disliking "comforts or ease", and tends to be "very forthright and blunt, sometimes even confrontational" in how she addresses issues. Guerrilla Games always envisioned the game as starring a strong female character, with game director Mathijs de Jonge citing Sarah Connor from Terminator, Ellen Ripley from Alien, and Ygritte from Game of Thrones as influences.^[2][3] Sony decided to do rigorous market testing, believing that adding a female lead might be a "risk", but approved her as the lead role.^[4] The developers were aware of the strong female character cliche and tried to make a more human character with a more interesting personality.^[4] Aloy's physical likeness was based on the Dutch actress Hannah Hoekstra.^[5]

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Rost, an outcast of the Nora tribe, is depicted caring for the infant Aloy. Six years later, while exploring on her own, she accidentally falls into a destroyed ancient human bunker. There, she discovers an augmented reality device known as a Focus before being rescued by Rost. Despite his misgivings, Rost allows her to keep and learn to operate the Focus, which she soon uses to rescue an injured member of the Nora. Aloy expresses the desire to learn the identity of her mother, and Rost suggests training to compete in the Proving, a coming-of-age ritual that, if she won, would allow her to enter the tribe and gain the answers she seeks.

The story skips forwards twelve years - due to Aloy's single-minded desire to win the Proving, she has become a skilled warrior and huntress. Overcoming setbacks, she wins the competition and is declared a Nora. A group of cultists led by Helis, a fanatic who seeks to kill Aloy, suddenly stage a surprise attack on the ceremony. Most of her fellow warriors are murdered, but Rost sacrifices himself to save Aloy. When she comes to inside All-Mother Mountain, one of the tribe's elders explains that Aloy actually had no parents - she was found in front of a blast door within the mountain, and was exiled after she was suspected of being an ill omen. Aloy also uses her Focus to discover that Helis targeted her using an image of an older but identical woman.

Aloy is declared a Seeker and sets out to avenge the attack on the tribe. Eventually, she is contacted by Sylens, a mysterious man who reveals that the older woman is Dr. Elisabet Sobeck. Her genetic profile allows her to access the headquarters of Faro Automated Solutions, where she sees that Elisabet was a skilled scientist who was called in to try to stop a rogue swarm of self-replicating combat robots that used biomass as fuel. The company's CEO, Ted Faro, carelessly encrypted the machines so securely that it became impossible to shut them down. She then sets out to discover what Elisabet had planned to do, what was referred to as "Project Zero Dawn."

Aloy later discovers that the global human populace was tricked into fighting a heroic, yet futile war against the robots solely to buy time for Zero Dawn. The true purpose of Zero Dawn was to allow life on Earth to end, causing the swarm to go dormant; spend thousands of years breaking Faro's encryption; then re-seeding the dead planet and restoring its biosphere. However, a mysterious signal caused Zero Dawn's AI, GAIA, to suddenly self-destruct, unshackling her component processes. One such process was HADES, an emergency "reset switch" for the planet that began plotting to destroy it. In desperation, what was left of GAIA initiated the defunct "Lightkeeper Protocol", making a clone of Sobeck, whom she predicted would save the world a second time. Aloy was brought outside the cloning facility by a robot, where she was discovered by the Nora elders.

Reaching the entrance to GAIA Prime, Aloy discovers that the core of GAIA has been annihilated. While exploring the Zero Dawn facility, Aloy also learns that Dr. Sobeck sacrificed herself to close a malfunctioning vent from the outside, saving the project from the encroaching all-consuming robots. The other key members of Zero Dawn were murdered by Ted Faro, who used an override code to vent the command bunker's air and delete its data in the delusional belief that without knowledge or science, humans would live peaceful lives. This caused the educational system to malfunction for the first generation of artificially created humans, reverting them to hunter-gatherers. Aloy sets out to find the Master Override that can shut down HADES. With the help of Sylens, she obtains the Override and confronts HADES, shutting it down in the nick of time. In an ending scene, she is seen finding the body of Dr. Sobeck and getting closure in the search for her origins.^[6]

Intrigued by rumors of a new wave of dangerous machines at the edge of the Banuk land, Aloy took a detour from her mission to explore the Cut. After learning more about the "Spirit" from Ourea, Aloy attempts to fulfil her request by saving the mysterious entity. Soon afterwards, she teams up with Ourea's brother, Aratak. Subsequently, they head to an ancient ruin at Thunder's Drum, the Firebreak facility to free the "Spirit". Later, Aloy discovers that HEPHAESTUS, one of GAIA's sub-functions, took control of the facility from an unknown remote location, enslaving the previous governing AI, CYAN, who Ourea earlier deemed as the voice of the "Spirit". After Aloy, Ourea and Aratak defeat the enemy, they head to the facility's core. Ourea sacrifices herself to finish the override, with Aloy later consoling Aratak for his loss. They quickly flee from the collapsing facility, leaving Ourea's body behind. After a successful escape, Aloy and Aratak meet again at Ourea's Retreat to discuss matters with CYAN. Prior to finishing the last mission at the Cut, Aloy attempts to converse with Aratak, who requests for her help to eliminate the remaining threats caused by HEPHAESTUS. After finishing the mission, Aloy returns to Ourea's apprentice Naltuk, who thanks her for assisting the Banuk. He then bids her with a respectful farewell.

Horizon Forbidden West continues the story of Aloy half a year after the events of Zero Dawn. Due to the rapid collapse of Earth's biosphere, causing plant life to turn red and toxic, Aloy decides to journey to the "Forbidden West" (the West Coast) in order to find a backup copy of the now-destroyed GAIA and bring her back online. She succeeds in doing so, but also comes into conflict with the Zeniths, immortal space colonists who returned to Earth after the failure of their colony and seemingly sent the mysterious signal in order to wipe all life from Earth's surface and start anew. The Zeniths have been using a second clone of Sobeck, named Beta, to access secure installations. Aloy rescues the traumatized Beta, who slowly begins to trust her. After restoring most of GAIA's component functions, Aloy and her allies try to reintegrate HEPHAESTUS with GAIA, but the Zeniths end up kidnapping GAIA, HEPHAESTUS, and Beta to serve their plans.

During Aloy's final assault on the Zeniths' base, she and Beta work together to release HEPHAESTUS into their systems, sacrificing their chance to capture it, but allowing it to create a machine army that kills most of the Zeniths and their robot servitors. Arriving at their control room, she discovers the hidden truth that the Zeniths merely meant to steal GAIA and escape; a berserk gestalt intelligence known as Nemesis, created by the Zeniths as a failed experiment into digital immortality, had actually destroyed both their colony and GAIA, seeking vengeance on humanity, and is now en route to Earth. The last surviving Zenith, Tilda, attempts to "save" Aloy against her will, due to her former relationship with Sobeck, but Aloy defeats and kills her. Aloy decides to stay on Earth, working together with Sylens and Beta to stop Nemesis and find a way to recapture HEPHAESTUS.

Sent on a quest by Sylens to locate the final remaining Zenith on Earth, Aloy ends up stranded on the Burning Shores, an island where a group of shipwrecked Quen having taken refuge. Alongside new ally Seyka, Aloy investigates the whereabouts both the Zenith and a missing group of Quen. Over the course of Burning Shores, Aloy grows closer to Seyka, and can (determinately) confess romantic feelings towards her.^[7][8]

The game's story follows Ryas, a former Shadow Carja rebel who is sentenced to atone for his crimes by joining an expedition sent to investigate a new threat to the Sundom. During his journey, Ryas meets numerous new and returning characters, including franchise protagonist Aloy.

Aloy returns in this Lego retelling of the events of Horizon Zero Dawn from a more comedic and family-friendly perspective. In Lego Horizon Adventures, Aloy is depicted as more lighthearted and humorous than in her canon appearances.^[9]

Aloy has appeared in other media outside of the Horizon games. She was a playable character in the PlayStation 4 version of Monster Hunter: World and makes cameo appearances in both Astro's Playroom and Astro Bot, the latter of which contains a level played as her.^[10][11][12] Aloy was added to Fortnite Battle Royale on 15 April 2021, for the Chapter 2, Season 6 "Primal" event. A limited time "Aloy Cup" was available to PlayStation players, while a "Team Up!" mode with Lara Croft from Tomb Raider was added. She also got an extra style called Ice Hunter, which was only available to players that owned the outfit and played the game on PlayStation 5.^[13][14]

In September 2021, Aloy was given out as a free collaboration character for PS4 and PS5 players of the game Genshin Impact, while players on other platforms received her for free in limited time in October 2021. In the game, she is a Bow user of the Cryo element;^[15] she is however considered one of the weakest characters in the game due to lack of Constellation which strengthens the character as well only being available during the limited time, meaning players will not obtain her after 23 November 2021.^[16] That December, Aloy was added to season 6 of Fall Guys as part of a limited time event called "Aloy's Blaze Canister Mayhem". The event ran between 6 and 12 December, giving players the opportunity to unlock her as a costume.^[17][18] When asked about an appearance in Super Smash Bros. due to the release of Lego Horizon Adventures on Nintendo Switch, Guerilla responded, "That'd be nice. If you speak to Nintendo and they want to invite us let me know."^[19]

Peter Tieryas of Kotaku praised the character of Aloy, finding the scene where Aloy talks to her father's grave moving in part due to how "real" their relationship felt and how it shows how things have changed for Aloy since her childhood.^[6] Malindy Hetfield of Polygon praised Aloy as "inspiring and captivating", but also called her "not particularly relatable" compared to the game's other female characters due to her "flawlessness".^[20] Aloy's story about her origins resonated with Sam Loveridge of GamesRadar+ and inspired her to seek out her own birth parents.^[21] Lucas Sullivan of the same site called her "one of gaming's greatest female leads".^[22] She was ranked as one of the best video game characters of the 2010s by Polygon staff with Colin Campbell praising the character by stating that "She's pragmatic but compassionate, iron-willed but open-minded. In a 31st-century world with its own norms and taboos, particularly around gender, Aloy refuses to let anyone else tell her how to live."^[23] Paste magazine writer Holly Green included Aloy as the best new game characters of 2017.^[24] TheGamer also included Aloy on their "Iconic Video Game Characters", stating that "Aloy is one of the best protagonists of the last decade, of which there are many to choose from, mostly because of her strong-willed nature and ability to act strong in difficult situations."^[25]

Ashly Burch, the voice actress for Aloy, won an award for "best gaming performance" at the 35th Golden Joystick Awards. She thanked the developers, saying that playing the character made her a "braver and stronger woman", and that she hoped Aloy would be inspiring to other women.^[26] The writing, design, and vocal/motion-capture performance of Aloy has been nominated for "Outstanding Achievement in Character" twice at the D.I.C.E. Awards, one each for Zero Dawn in 2018 and Forbidden West in 2023.^[27][28]

• Aloy on Genshin Impact Wiki