The PlayStation 4-exclusive game, which sold incredibly well, celebrated its first birthday this week, so the developers went to Reddit.

They held an Ask Me Anything session there, and the two people who replied to the questions were Ashly Burch (Aloy’s voice), and Ben McCaw (the lead writer of the game). McCaw revealed what inspired the team while writing the plot for the base game (as well as its only expansion, The Frozen Wilds).

„We had many inspirations, but here are two that might surprise you. For the main story, we took inspiration from biblical epics like Ben-Hur and The Ten Commandments, not because Aloy is religious in any specific way, but because we realized that there were parallels between what we wanted to do and some of those epic heroes. As for the Frozen Wilds, we were inspired by the film 2010. Can you guess why?” – McCaw wrote.

He also revealed that there was a cut quest line from the final game. In it, Aloy would have gone to Oseram, where the tribe would have caused conflicts, as they don’t allow women to own property, and Aloy’s strong, independent approach would have „shaken things up a bit.” He also said what messages did Guerrilla want to convey on a personal level:

„This is a cool question. Horizon: Zero Dawn gave us an amazing opportunity to make the game we wanted, and PlayStation was always supportive. In addition to making it a kick-ass story about machines and tribes and epic threats to the world, we wanted it to be personal. We wanted it to be about bonds of love that cross generations, ties that can survive any destructive force. And on a very basic level, we wanted it to be about a woman’s search for her mother. We hope that came through, and from the response, it seems like it has,” McCaw replied.

Horizon: Zero Dawn 2 – will it be announced at E3? We’ll see in roughly a quarter year.

Source: WCCFTech