Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn is a 2017 action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The first instalment in the Horizon video game series, it is set in a post-apocalyptic United States where large robotic machines dominate the Earth while humans live in primitive tribes with varying levels of technological development. The game follows Aloy, a young huntress who sets out to uncover her past. The player uses ranged weapons, a spear, and stealth to combat mechanical creatures and other enemy forces. A skill tree provides the player with new abilities and bonuses. The player can explore the open-world to discover locations and take on side quests.

Horizon Zero Dawn was Guerrilla Games' first intellectual property since Killzone in 2004 and its first open-world and role-playing game. Development began in 2011 after the completion of Killzone 3, with director Mathijs de Jonge considering it the riskiest idea pitched at the time. The game engine, Decima, was developed for Killzone: Shadow Fall (2013) and altered for Zero Dawn. Despite being in a post-apocalyptic setting, the game uses vibrant colours and was designed to evoke a sense of adventure and hope. Anthropologists were consulted to authenticate the world's decay over a millennium, while experts in robotics were consulted to develop realistic machine designs. Non-fiction books by Jared Diamond, and futuristic fiction such as Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and Princess Mononoke (1997), influenced the design of the game's setting and narrative. The game's cast included Ashly Burch and Lance Reddick, while the soundtrack was composed by Joris de Man, featuring contributions from The Flight.

Released for the PlayStation 4 in February 2017, the game was ported to Windows in 2020 as the first in a series of PlayStation exclusive video games arriving on personal computers. A remastered version of the game, developed by Nixxes Software, was released in October 2024. Zero Dawn received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised its setting, story, visuals, and combat; however, its role-playing mechanics and unoriginal gameplay received some criticism. The game won numerous awards including one BAFTA and two D.I.C.E. Awards. Over 24.3 million units of the game were sold by April 2023. An expansion, The Frozen Wilds, was released in November 2017. A sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, was released in February 2022. Events in the game are reinterpreted comically in Lego Horizon Adventures, which was released in November 2024. A film adaptation is in the works by PlayStation Productions and Columbia Pictures.