Aloy Trends As Fans Discuss Horizon Forbidden West Hero

ppl b trippin

Them clowns got to much time on theyre hands.aloy looks amazing.someone needs to get theyre eyes check out.word up son

Well it came from Twitter, so already it's high on the Troll scale and low on the scale of significance. I think her character model is fine and the proposed fan alternative is not suitable and thankfully we won't get that one.

Guurl, she looks fine. Gamers must be bored out of their minds if this stupid thing is "trending".
Anyway, I'm super excited about Necromunda: Hired Gun and I hope the PS team likes it lol.

Everybody is entitled to an opinion but sometimes even that notion is taken to the extreme.

I didn’t really appreciate that much of a difference (there are obvious next gen upgrades). And the proposed face is hilarious given the setting and time of the game. This is either trolling or this person has a very unrealistic idea if the game’s story happens for real. Case in point: people during war have priorities and looking pretty is not one of them.

If it wasn't this, people would find something else to complain about. Game looks phenomenal and Aloy looks great too.

Frankly, the fan made picture just looks worse because it's so obviously unrealistic. If you want to play a game with a more conventionally attractive female lead, play Recore and then tell me one thing about Jule that makes her interesting.
(You didn't even know that was her name)

There is a definite intention, from either Sony or devs/publishers, to not portray women as “sexualised” (AKA: traditionally pretty), in the same way they would in the past.
People have their own opinions as to whether this is good or bad, but it’s certainly not in any way debatable. It’s a clear, demonstrable, fact.

Basically a bunch of massively sexist arseholes went on a rant. Everyone else took the piss out of them. That’s the story.

I kid you all not, my first thought when I saw Aloy in her new costume was "wow, she looks beautiful". I also found Abby to be attractive as well. These people criticizing these women for looking more masculine or buff might as well come from outer space in my eyes.

I'm a proud Amazon chaser who's also into redheads. Sorry not sorry.

When I first saw the trailer I thought she definitely had a more chubbier face, but she has probably been taking it easy inbetween heroic journeys. You know, the whole feast and famine of pre-industrial/agricultural societies. But masculine? Get out of here.

Imagine having that much of an embarrassing life. Such a waste of oxygen

Her body appears to be the same, her face fatter, it’s odd.

It’s also worth pointing out that Aloy has a real life woman’s face being scanned in. So all of these jibes at how she looks masculine and such might as well be aimed at the model. Who, surprisingly enough, is a real life person, not some photoshopped nightmare like the second photo.

It's weird how people are drawn to the most insignificant of issues that border along the lines of nitpicky, much like that PuddleGate nonsense with Spider-Man, people always find ways to make a mountain out of an ant hill.

The only thing I I noticed is that the face is chubbier than it was in the original. I don’t know that it’s a good or bad thing though, it just is. 🤷🏼‍♂️

From this particular shot of her face, it looks like she got a sunburn while wearing sunglasses and a face mask.

Otherwise, character and facial animations are spectacular in the new game!

I think shes less appealing to look at than in the 1st game. That said, it doesn't matter at all to me how she looks because that's not what Id be buying the game for lol. The only thing that has me confused tho is why they bothered to get her a face model and then have it look absolutely nothing like her especially in this sequel

Also the fan edit on the right looks pretty damn ugly

@LivewireCLS - Yeah you're right, saw some folks complaining about Aloy using a grappling hook and how it's uninspired, however considering the increased verticality of the world, a grappling hook is absolutely necessary for vertical traversal, plus if a grappling hook wasn't included, people would complain about it's absence.

I would love to see heavy set main characters given spotlight in games, doing acrobatic and physically impossible things just like their “traditionally fit” counterparts. It’s kind of strange that the 2 males interacting with Aloy in the Forbidden West trailer are built like Gears characters while she herself has the body of a model

It's cause guerilla games purposely made aloy fugly on purpose.
Dunno if SJW had anything to do with it but they didn't want to sexualize the female features so aloy got slapped with ugly stick. I prefer Lara croft from square Enix where she has a normal size breasts and not too pretty but not ugly either. Think Abbie from tlou2 if you want masculine females. Maybe girlie male characters are next

Sorry, she's got dude-face. Put a crew cut on the left hand image and she's a chubby Duke Nukem.

You all can go on about how new age you are and how superior your morals are than those of people who don't agree with you, but I'll tell you, I think it's sad that in seemingly every game with a female lead that comes out now, they try to transmogrify that character into something androgynous with a ski coat on to hide a figure, etc.

Most women I know are HAPPY to be women, and they LIKE to be considered sexy. The fact that most of you seem unable to appreciate that just seems crazy to me.

I fully expect some "oh god! what a sexist! I'm so offended!" comments to follow this. But really, I just don't get it. The thing I find offensive is how some seem eager to take offense at just about anything, and then preach about what a great person they are for having their new-age beliefs.

Gamers are just. Gross sometimes.

@AgentGuapo here's a tissue.

I was too focused on the gameplay to care about how she looks.

Lol hilarious. Seems a societal issue about expectations of aesthetics of main characters, inflated by Hollywood and such. There hasn't been much of a change, in fact it's actually got worse, really. It seems that maybe the male fans are far more vocal about their need for generically attractive characters, though. I winder if they consider that some people may find her more attractive as she is?

Maybe she found a truck full of Twinkies and devoured the lot - those things last forever you know. Horizon Zero Willpower 🤪

Joking aside, I can’t wait to play this game... whatever she looks like.

@LordSteev Have you considered they may LIKE to be considered sexy because they feel less appreciated in their other roles in life? Seems more of a conditioning to me. When we get right down to the core of it, we will get philosophical about what makes us happy or fulfilled in life. There is clearly an uneven structure that currently sets our ambitions towards sexual attraction, because it seems to be more propsperitable and people feel more appreciated when they are pleasing societies standards of pleasurable aesthetics. It is at odds with reality, where it actually doesn't serve much purpose and skills and professions are more valuable for us to survive and profit.

@LordSteev Or maybe straight guys should stop telling women how to act, look and behave : -)

Her face is definitely fatter, but I don't give a flooded dam.

I like Aloy's design.
She has that redness that runs from her cheek bones to her nose and I have the same kind of thing. I don't know if it's slight rosacea or what but it makes me feel kinda self conscious when I'm out in public.

The image that dude tweeted is just straight up horrible.
But Aloy does look a lot fatter than in the first game, which is weird given the fact that she runs and climbs everywhere and she should've lost her baby fat by now (how old is she? 19?)

@LordSteev Call it "sisterhood" : -)
We need to look out for our queens and that includes Aloy.

People always trying to find something to criticize. She doesn't have to look like a barbie doll. She doesn't have to be beautiful. I think she looks perfect. Let's move on people.

@Divergent95 That's cool, and I don't have anything against you. But I don't understand your point. I'm not telling anyone how they should look or act, but when games portray women as asexual or androgynous, THAT is, in a way, telling them how to act.

@LordSteev I know what you’re saying but I highly doubt the woke crowd will even contemplate it. They will just attack you.

The last couple years I’ve seen multiple magazine covers showing very overnight females saying “this is healthy”. Then those people who like that find out they have a massively increased chance to have issues with COVID. It’s to the point where they just flat out lie about it now.

Aloy looks like Aloy. They altered the lines from her cheeks to chin but otherwise did a great job. She looks like she lives in a fallen world.

@FatalBubbles

I know, you're right. But I'm bored and low-level pissed off today, so in a way I guess I'm looking for it.

She looks older, which fits. I can't wait!

This reminds me of a video i saw on youtube about sexism in gamers. In particular using the line "you should smile more often".
That is what i see in the comparison image.

Not every woman is a top model, or there just to be your eye candy.
If you notice, her male friend is also ugly af. Why not also mention he should be looking like a male model?
The developers were going for a more casual and relateable look.

Also, where was Aloy gonna get that lipstick, lipstick gloss, eyeliner, browliner, etc on a post apocalyptic world? XD
It would make no sense.

@LordSteev I didn't mean you in particular, just a general statement.
It all comes down to writers and designers and if they portray them like that, it's cool.
Let's just stop telling people how to look and behave and let's encourage individuality.

@Divergent95 I just feel like the big corporations that make games nowadays feel lots of outside pressure from various groups, and are no longer free and unconstrained to make a game true to their vision, whatever that vision might be. It might surprise you to know that I'm a life-long democrat. Largely because I think the true measure of any society is how they treat their most downtrodden. I'm just against the death of sexuality.
Let's just hold hands and twirl in circles.

Women don’t have to be pretty and men don’t have to be handsome, it’s about the content of their character that makes an interesting protagonist. And Sony have got that 100% right with Aloy

She looks natural in the world aloy is from she's not going to be wearing makeup or have any cosmetic surgery or anything like that is she

@LordSteev

Bro if you want a game with sexy girls nutaku has you covered. Don't worry, sexualizing girls isn't going anywhere. The horny market will always exist. I for one don't mind and don't need it when I'm trying to play a game. I don't wanna be like "huehue look at that big booty" while I'm moving my female character around.

It also doesn't really make sense for Aloy to have that sort of body. In a post apocalypse world where people actively go out and hunt only the strongest survive, so it makes more sense than giving her a "sexy" figure.

And they may have nerfed Tifa and Lara Croft but I still think they're very attractive women. Their bodies just make more sense now. Games are more focused on realism than ever.

@ATaco It's not so much about wanting it in games (although, if it's 3rd person and my POV is asscam, I sure don't mind) but more about how if a developer wanted to make a game (a good game) with an attractive female protagonist, would the corporation that owns them even let them make it?

Sony make aloy more fat, while she's an athletic person that run, swim, and kill robot/human alike, of course there's backlash lol.

I don't get this racing to the bottom from western devs to make their female protagonist as unattractive as possible, I'm actually suprised when I played ff7 remake, that's developer still can make attractive female protagonist in video games.

The gold standard in the most ugly face (in sony exclusive games) is still tlou 2 though, abby is straight up a man, it's reminded me of that predator scene, "you're one ugly motherf****r" lol.

@Residentsteven 😛

Many people said that Ellie looked very different in the second trailer of TLOU2 and some people said "no, she looks fine don't complain for stupid reasons". But guess what? Naughty dog changed her face in the next trailer and the main game because she actually looked different in the second trailer. The same thing applies here imo. The new alloy doesn't look ugly at all but she looks very different and I think her face needs some changes. (Obviously, the right photo is ridiculous)

@LordSteev

I'm pretty sure they would, since Tifa is still smoking and FF7R is considered a great game. Ultimately it just depends on if you saw Tifa's boob nerf as a horrible injustice to humanity. If anything I think devs are NOW making games with characters that they want to make because so much of the 90's was "make it sexy, sex sells!"

We had our fun but just like how mascot platformers have (mostly) gone out of style, they're just trying to appeal to what the market wants now and this is what people want now. You may hate it since it's not what you're used to but society keeps moving forward.

@ATaco I should have specified Western Developer, and yes, I miss the 90's.

I don't really care how Aloy's face will look like at HFW. However, I can't help but noticed how western developers tend to make their female characters less feminine nowadays, while the male protagonist still look like Hollywood actors starring in an action movie.

And the whining for the most insignificant and idiotic things you can think continues... Congrats "gamers", you have done it again.

She looks perfectly fine. Period.

Damn people have a lot of time to worry about insignificant stuff. I’m just trying to stay awake for more than 30 minutes after work lol

Gamers still wonder why others don't take them seriously when this is the kind of ***** they decide to get outraged about

Aloy always looked a little "boyish", for my tastes. But that's fine, we need to get over thinking women (or men, for that matter) can only portray one specific style or aesthetic ... Furthermore, boys — and not fully matured males — need to quit thinking women are only here to fulfill our sexual fantasies ...

Aloy's face was not ok in the first game. They made it unnaturally symmetrical (they literally mirrored one side) but that can be explained within the narrative of the game, given Aloy's origins etc. I found that face to be way deep into uncanny valley.
The new face makes no sense temporally as it looks as if we are back to Aloy's mid teens and not late teen or post teen years. I am not generalising - some people have their mid teen face well into their late twenties but once they are out of that phase, they don't go back. Aloy's face was already out of that stage in Zero Dawn.
That said, and off to totally irrelevant personal appeal, I found her to look more natural, cute actually. Yes, her face is a bit chubby but so what? You try fighting those machines and keeping an eye on your BMI.

To people saying that she looks more masculine, you are not totally wrong, she does a bit, but I didn't hear you cry out in pain when FFVII remake came out and Cloud looked like the sweetest rose. 😂

Now, if you'll excuse me, I am busy playing Mass Effect.

EDIT: oh, oh, oh, yes, just to be clear, that suggested look in the tweet is just hilariously wrong. I have nothing against Instagram models and "influencers" but c'mon my man, get out a bit, meet some people.

I'm always amazed at the things that get so much attention these days with people. Spider-Man had puddles. The Last of Us 2 had golf clubs. Now Horizon has an apparent fat face for Aloy. (I don't see it, and I don't care anyway.) Here I am being blown away by the quality of the Horizon 2 demo in general only to look online to see people complaining about Aloys puffy cheeks. 🙄

I just don't understand how some folks think these days a lot of the time. It's the same as when people complained about not being able to play as a female in AC Unity. (Even though it was because, you know, the writers wrote for a male to be the lead... so...)

Bottom line is this sentence. Who actually cares about any of this stuff? Also sorry I just went on a rant there!

Probably just a bunch of depressed Xbots knowing they've already lost another gen trying to get revenge over the whole "Craigs face" fiasco.

People of other platforms try to downplay PlayStation games all the time when they look incredible to play but I guarantee it won't be long before Xbox and PC players are begging for it on their platforms again as usual. And one day when and if it makes it to PC they'll be celebrating it as "best game ever!" As they usually do like the hypocrites that they are.

@Alaae0496 I wouldn't say that this is exclusive to gamers. I think one thing that we have to understand and accept is that people that were growing up in the 90s and before that grew up in a completely different environment to those that are growing up in the new millennium.

To us, boys like action figures and girls like barbies. Pink is a feminine color. Boys like cars and girls like make up. Being called gay was one of the absolute biggest insults that you could say to another man. We were socially conditioned to believe these things. It was everywhere.

I'll admit that I'm trying to be as open as possible to the new direction society wants to take us but it can still be hard for me sometime. Things that I grew up seeing flipped around entirely. I do acknowledge that this change is ultimately a good thing as it grants more freedoms to more people and that's why I go along with it but really... sometimes the things I see can just be overwhelming. So many red flags that would get a poor kid mocked to hell and back as a child now embraced and accepted normally.

So I don't think that this is just a "gamer" thing... it's more of some of us that were raised to see the world a certain way now being told that practically everything that we were taught was wrong and narrow minded of us. You can see why it would cause people to lash out right? Sorry, I think I'm just trying to explain the confusing emotions I get sometimes. Like, I'm happy that others can be happy too but in the back of my mind there's this nagging thing that says "But wait, that's wrong." That I need to constantly suppress now so I don't offend anyone. It's still going to take me time to even understand the whole preferred pronouns thing...

But yeah, ultimately I do believe in everyone's right to be free and happy. All I ask is that you give some of us more time to process these things and if we lash out, it's because we're internally conflicted and I can see why many feel like their way of life is being attacked and invaded. Sometimes I feel like utter garbage if I don't immediately accept the newest social rule that I barely understand. I'm sure people felt the same way when women started to dress "less ladylike" and things like that. Society will inevitably march forward... it'll just take a few of us longer to get there.

This all went off on a tangent but yeah, changing Aloy's face is just another one of those things. We grew up seeing beautiful women in our games and while I've accepted that that's not realistic and this new direction is for the better, I can understand the aggressive responses from people who grew up seeing women in an admittedly more negative way. Lara Croft didn't have bigger boobs on the PS1 to make her a better Tomb Raider, it was to slap her image on the box and magazines to attract us horny gamers to buy the game. She was the creation of market tests to see what we wanted back then. In this way you can argue that the industry is so inclusive nowadays. It's not because they suddenly had a change of heart...it's because they tested this and found that this is how they'd be able to make the most profit. Oversexualized characters would cause too much headache to be able to sell well.

@Nem tribal societies had or used the things they found in nature as makeup.

Aloy looks like Aloy, More Horizon is great. Somebody needs to nuke Twitter from orbit!

This guerilla community is childish as hell. I'm only gonna address the people that are whining about her face. If you don't like it, don't buy the game. Complaining over such a small detail, learn to be mature and the definition of "get over it". Sheesh man people complain over the most random small details.

Ahh twitter ***** again please can it just be erased , anyway I think it's a good change, maybe alloy spent last 6 months in the gym and eating right getting ready for the next ***** storm

Aloy does not live in a Disney castle. Twitter should be changed to Onlydumbfans.

Oh boy...
Honestly, I don't think the model changed THAT much, it's probably just the softer lighting that soften her face a lot compared to the ''harsher'' lighting of the first one. I might be wrong.

This isn't to do with her being hot or not, but to be honest, I've never liked her face. She's always reminded me of the mascot of Mad Magazine.

Listen, the model hasn't changed significantly. In fact, the difference is so subtle I really doubt anyone even noticed it at first until the comparison videos/pics came out.

Fact is, the comparisons are off. Everyone's ignoring the angle of the shots and the difference in lighting. Yes, her face is just a little bit rounder than before but that's it. The expressions on her face is also different than the pictures from HZD. In HZD Aloy's face usually had these long-face expressions where she was shocked whereas here... it's a totally difference expression.

All these aside, this is a speculative game set in a thousand years after the collapse of society. The rules/norms of how someone is attractive don't apply to this society anymore.

I also don't get what the ***** is wrong with Ellie? Do these people really just want Instagram models in their games? Lara Crofts with big ti**ies and perfect faces?

gimmie a break, man

This is definitely a sexist thing.

Spider-man: "They've changed his face, and he doesn't look like the character I've grown to know."

Aloy: "She doesn't look like how I want women to look"

See the subtle difference?

Edit: I asked my partner why she thinks people might complain about the face changes and she said "maybe because there's a lack of food and she shouldn't be chubbier?"

I showed her the above post and she instantly goes "because she's not pretty enough!?, there wouldn't even be make up!?"

I stand by my reasoning that this is pure sexism.

Edit 2: it's also killing me that the one on the right isn't even skinnier than HFW Aloy, she just has make up, has her eyebrows done and has unnaturally white teeth.

I don’t see anything wrong with the new face and I think one of the main reasons it looks different is due to the generation difference.

Look at Nathan Drake in Uncharted 4 versus Uncharted 3, it’s a completely different character model, but with the enhancements to facial animations and just improved skills in modelling, it results in a more natural looking face. You can see massive improvements to the animation in HFW.

Aloy is beautiful and I don’t think she looks fat, she just has a slightly rounder face than before. I think it’s great we have more diversity with the way females look in games, not every woman is a supermodel in real life 🙄

I can't wait for the day that opinion on twitter is left to rot there for the turgid pointless drivel it almost always is.

At that point in the demo she was frowning at a humongous nasty robot mammoth,I'd cut her a bit of slack 🤣

I thought it was Jimmy Hopkins from Bully with a wig on.

Like with most third person games, I imagine I will spend 95% of my playtime looking at her back.

There won't be much food available in post-apocalyptic times, especially if there is a war against the machines/aliens/whatever!.. Most women won't have chubby faces like Aloy is displayed here. It's unrealistic, IMHO.

How is the fan made model better than the one in the gameplay reveal? She looks nothing like Aloy in Zero Dawn.

I'm still not convinced she even looks that different from the first game lol. Are you all sure it isn't just the angle, or the lighting? I surely wouldn't have noticed it.

I honestly don't think the one on the left is an improvement over Zero Dawn. In the comparison article posted a few days ago, I thoght the Forbidden West Aloy looked like a step backwards.

@sqxrz the "fan" made model was created as satire, the user who made it posted it on r/gamingcirclejerk mocking the people who are upset about how she looks saying "I made a non-political Aloy" Which people took seriously on Twitter and began ranting with. It's just dumb Twitter drama.

It's the same as before, I don't wanna generalize but I've seen this happen before with Death Stranding and Part II. Some people on other platforms are upset they can't play the game so they begin sh!**ing on it for dumb reasons. (They called Death Stranding a playable movie and just another walking sim while it was on PS4 when it came out on PC, the game suddenly became GOTY, the same goes with Forbidden West if it comes out on PC one day... the entirity of Twitter will praise it) They're just trying to steal the game's thunder, I'm afraid.
And gladly, they're failing

No need to be salty about this. Aloy was ugly in first game but she was cute as well. Now she looks even uglier. I am playing on playstation platform for 22 years and i will buy the new horizon game the minute it releases so that means i am a real fan. She could be both masculine and beautiful but instead they made her masculine and ugly and a bit fat as well.

What were you doing in those 6 months Aloy? Munching foods with that neanderthal Erend, all day?

Everyone's talking about her face while I'm like "Where's the armpit hair?". Guess we're still not quite ready for that step yet.

I guess people skipped past my massive wall of text but it makes me sad to see the other side not understanding where some people might be coming from. Oh well, I guess that side isn't as open minded, caring and inclusive as they want you to believe. At the end of the day we're all flawed.

@Sam-Bridges The satire thing is hilarious.

But I disagree this is a "other platform" issue. This is a politics issue. The same communities that cried about gamer gate, LOU2, SJWs, and Star Wars (even though I still personally dislike the sequels) will be the same group that cry about this.

@ATaco sorry, I know you're trying to form a bridge and explain where these issues and attitudes stem from, but you're still essentially just focusing on how you feel and how you're affected and not how the people negatively affected by these issues feel. These changes and issues aren't about people like me or you and that's what needs to be understood before any meaningful change can really happen.

I just don’t understand what the problem is, I’ve watched the state of play a few times and in motion she looks absolutely fine. Is this a promotional shot or has some moron went frame by frame on the video to get the worst shot of her? I’m sure we all have partners that when you take a picture of them insist on seeing it first to get their best side.

@ATaco My childhood was the 80s and 90s and yes, we were very much pigeonholed to hell and back, and I agree that changing is hard.

However, I recognise that if another person displays traits that of another gender, it doesn't hurt my own masculinity. In fact, as a person who enjoyed cooking and caring (I did youth and community work and the guys in my family enjoy cooking) I recognised that I would have been happier without people telling me I shouldn't do those things purely because they were afraid I'd turn out gay. I'm more masculine and secure in it now that I've embraced any and all femine traits I have, than I ever was when I was younger.

The societal norms we had weren't right, and I don't see why I'd hold on to a way of life that I could feel was damaging to people's lives.

As uncle Dana would say she looks like wanderlei silver in a dress

Quite sad how much attention this clown is getting, should be the opposite

Not all women have feminine features, not all men have masculine features 🙄

Seems a bit too “done up” on the right; more what I’d expect on a Red Carpet event.

On the other hand, since reading a comment here comparing the left image with Buzz from Home Alone, I can’t help but agree there is an uncanny resemblance.

At the end of the day, I’m not bothered about the Horizon series so she could look like a buck-toothed burn victim or something out of Keeping up with the Kardashians for all I care.

@Furious-Fingers "As uncle Dana would say she looks like wanderlei silver in a dress"

In the UK, if I had someone tell me they had an uncle Dana, I'd assume that was a guy in a dress.

(for context, 'Dana' is pretty much exclusively a female name in the UK)

@wiiware 🤦

You're obsessed, it's not healthy, seek help.

Aloy looks different but she's still our Aloy. I remember this ***** when AC Odyssey came out and we were shown Kassandra. "She's not beautiful, she looks like a man, she makes me feel...strange feelings" and much more. Some gamers are really threatened by muscular women and some gamers really need to stop moaning when some female protagonist don't look like a porn star or supermodel. They criticised the design of Selene from Returnal as well.

They need to grow up or, better yet, be completely ignored.

I have no problem with how she looks. She looks more female than other gaming females. And i'm assuming she identifies as female in the first place. As long as this game doesn't force their views or current hot topics down my throat (like other big games have), i'll be buying this as i loved the first game.

@Richnj Dana White UFC president. He famously said he's female fighter cris cyborg looked like wanderlei silva in a dress. Coz of their massive jaw line which is a sign of steroid use.

@Furious-Fingers I was not familiar with Cris but I am familiar with Dana.

I was making a joke about a guy called 'Dana' making a gender joke.

@Sam-Bridges Thanks for the update. People these days like to overreact & hate just for the sake of it. HFW is still in development with no release date, it's subject to change.

They should have seen Aloy in the E3 2016 gameplay reveal. 😆

Lot of blokes arguing about the made up lady's looks in this thread. The character looks exactly how the developer intended the character to look and, as with real life people, they shouldn't change anything because people on the internet dont think they look perfect.

She looks like Ashly burch who plays her,im quite suprised that in this twisty wisty world we now live in ,nobody has picked up on the fact that ashly burch is of thai origins and she's playing a white ginger ,oh think of the children and all that.

It's pathetic, plain and simple. Sony would be applauded for not pushing societal preconceptions of beauty on their protagonists. The discussion around Abby in TLOU reeked of this kind of misogyny and in all honesty I think the best antidote to it is just ignore it. These games sell massive amounts, and it gratifying to see that a quality product can sell without having to pander to an unpleasant minority

@Fuzzymonkeyfunk my Mrs loves taking ugly pictures of herself and posting them on social media ,she's like a female ricky Gervais,I find it highly amusing 😂

Her face is too round, and her eyes are situated too far up. She looks like a different person.

@wiiware shes hardly fat 😂 i honestly don't know why people care ,youre gonna spend most of the time looking at the back of her head

@MattyHammo Aloy is a trans lesbian, and she also happens to brutally murder the original Aloy from the first game and you’re forced to play it. And it’s shoved down your throat.

https://twitter.com/ElineMuijres/status/1399063635918532608?s=19

@ApostateMage YES !! Ha you've won the comments with that 🤣😄

For me, it's not wanting or needing a 'pretty' main character.
It's about the drastic change in the characters face from the original.
The only thing I can assume is that they've changed to a different actor for the face scan.
The original was Hannah Hoekstra and this looks absolutely nothing like her.

To me, the irony is that they get someone like Hannah Hoekstra to be the model for Aloy, and then they go ahead and make her look nothing like the person they based her on.

@Col_McCafferty I don’t know what people complained about regarding Selene but all I see in that game is Hillary Clinton in space. 😬

@sqxrz Yes, I understand and I don't mean that the entire crowd consists of those haters, again as I say I hate to generalize any group of people, let alone players who choose to play on other platforms. But we can't discard the fact that some people are just butthurts. But I totally agree about this being the same group of people (at least somehow related to those) who outraged about Part II and other games.

@Richnj Truly, Aloy has gone through many reiterations through development cycles. And not just Aloy, the entire game has, if we're being honest. I highly doubt we'll see much change now in HFW (as I personally see no reason for fundamental changes, at least in the case of Aloy's face), but we can never rule out the fact that games are subject to change while in development.

@GADG3Tx87
Agreed. A lot of people would discard it as conspiracy theory but a good chunk of backslashes are just console war spins from fanatics.
Mobs just follow the trend.

So they want a really generic female model how is that a improvement?

And all warriors do their make-up when fighting giant robots of mascara. The fanmade one looks like a generic Instagram model.

Also so much Botox that she only smiles with ofcourse the fake white bleeched teeth.

Still same Kelly Family matrone...

Here is another pic from the trailer.

https://twitter.com/Doc_Malior/status/1399141614602403843?s=20

But will it make the game worse? So aloy looks a bit butch..anybody here had a tomboy for a friend at school? I had a friend called maria who was cool as hell and could rock out with the best of us..she was rough but not fugly and she was an awesome laugh..i hope everything worked out for her because i lost touch many moons ago...so yeah aloys a bit rough around the edges but its a game character for christs sake...what is wrong with some people..

The fan made picture looks like crap. Too Disney. Looks like ariel from the little mermaid. UGH! Can you imagine if that was the official redesign? People would be losing their minds far worse! If you want your female character to look like a barbie doll then go play a barbie game or something.

Who cares what she looks like. There is no chance in hell for any of you to ever date her. You know on the notion that she ISN’T real! Now people are even body and face shaming computer generated characters. Talking about being pathetic and kind of creepy.

@Col_McCafferty I just don't like ugly things, I think that's normal human condition, I have the same annoyance when rockstar change max payne model from cool & handsome in max payne 1 & 2 to fat & ugly in max payne 3. I don't understand this trend of white knight defending fictional characters looks. Being fat is not healthy or good, people should exercise and lead a healthy lifestyle.

ps. Heck, because of this pandemic, I eat less outside food and cook my own food, I actually losing weight about 5kg, why aloy that's I'm sure is more healthy than me (thanks to the all running/swimming/killing and eat more organic food) has such puffy cheeks?

Is there a way to downvote a post? I don’t see the need or reason for this “news.” Like someone said something on Twitter that got some engagement, guess we better share it too? Is that how it is?

if we start adding fat faces cause they are realistic we might as well just quit gaming and go back to reality. games aren't supposed to look real, games are supposed to be games. if we add fat cheeks because they're real then why shouldn't we add a handicapped protagonist? they're real. blind, deaf and people with no arms. when you die the game ends forever.. etc. adding everything that's real. game don't have to look like you because you're real. games should look like games seperated from reality. otherwise what's the point?? you're getting reality in reality. by living reality. then stay in reality and don't play games.

I've always thought the over pretty boy and sexy girl looks in Japanese games were unrealistic. R* protagonists usually have random basic faces based a bit around the voice actors. It's brilliant and realistic. Heroes can't be that pretty all the time like typical FF games would have us believe. Aloy's had a fat face from when Rost was training her on the basics of hunting and survival.

To be fair, she does look different. The chubbier face makes her look older and doesn't fit with the rest of her still skinny body type.
The chubbiness isn't the problem really, it's the fact that she wasn't chubby in the previous game.
We're talking about fictional characters who rides mechanical robots! Is realism really necessary here?
It's like making a new God of War game and giving Kratos a Dad bod because we're afraid some men feel insecure about his muscular body type.

One of the things I liked about Dawn was it placed no importance whatsoever on the sexualisation of Aloy's character, which for the type of game and setting was very appropriate. She felt more real that way rather than being a sex object. I see her as hunter and acrobat first, and barely pay any mind to the fact she's female cos from the point of view of the game it's irrelevant.

Its sad that those kinds of Barbie doll plastic photoshop looking things are stuff certain men find attractive, though, like on the right hand picture. They look freakish and fake to me. Bimboification is a real thing, and in my opinion a real problem. It's gross. Natural is better, but that's personal bias on my part. Less makeup often works wonders and is better for the skin so it can breathe rather than using it as a face painted on top.

How shallow/lonely do you have to be for this to even bother you?

Looks fade, kids. Personalities live a lot longer!

@BadPlayerOne
You're stating the problem backwards. It's not us body and face shaming a digital character. The developers did this by deciding the way she looked before is no longer acceptable.
And again, it's not the chubbiness that's a problem. It's the fact that she wasn't in the previous games. Especially when there's only supposed to be six months between the previous game and this one.
She doesn't have to be sexualised (or a bimbo as someone mentioned). She wasn't in the previous game and looked just fine!
Some of my all star favourite movies have female lead characters in them that aren't considered "sexy" by the beauty standard of today (Terminator/Aliens). That's not the point we're making. Changing characters for no reason (other than social or political) doesn't feel right to me. Especially when we're talking about established (fantasy) characters and that's the problem I see.
It wouldn't stop me from buying this game but it's just weird and feels forced.
And do I even dare to say that you don't see such discussions with male characters? We don't all look like Marcus Phoenix, Nathan Drake or Duke Nukem to name a few iconic male characters

And this is why I don't tell anyone what my hobbies are. It's straight up embarrassing to tell someone that you're a gamer because they see arguments like this on the internet.

@commentlife I can totally relate to that!

"What is the one most important thing our society needs?"
"That would be harsher punishment for crimes against the Nora tribe, Stan... And World Peace."
(Miss Congeniality)

@LordSteev I agree. You can’t say anything these days without getting a nasty label put on you, but we’re still in a world where most people want to see women looking feminine and men looking masculine. There’s nothing wrong with that, just like there’s nothing wrong with people choosing their gender or sexual preference. The whole SJW thing has gone waaaaay to one side really hard and not everybody likes to see it in EVERYTHING. A female character doesn’t have to be a bombshell, but the majority of people want to see the character as what they are supposed to be. I still say the vast majority of people don’t want androgynous or obviously “woke sensitive” characters in every single game going forward. Kait Diaz in Gears and Elena Fisher in Uncharted 4 were awesome female characters who looked like average to slightly above average women, not supermodels. That shouldn’t be controversial. I’m not a “Hollywood good looks” person myself, but I don’t think every character has to be brown bag ugly like me.

I’m not trying to insult anyone, it’s just that not everything has to be a woke commentary. People need to toughen up a little. Just my opinion.

@wiiware Wow, just....wow.

Got to be careful what I say but seek help, friend.

I mean, I’m not going to avoid a game because a woman is unattractive or a man is in unattractive. But I also don’t want to play as a weedy hero or an ugly heroin

There is nothing wrong with aspirational ideals for men and women in media, whatever people are constantly trying to get us to believe.

As to this example. Yes, she looks a bit more chipmunky, but not unattractive like the heroines in returnal, TLOU2 etc. The second image provided by some twit doesn’t help anything and I feel was just provided here to belittle the discussion for those of us somewhat disappointed that all female characters are being created in a less traditionally attractive way.

I don’t think less feminine characters appeal to either men or women to a greater extent than their traditionally prettier counterparts. It’s done, like many things these days, just to avoid the disproportionately loud and viscous minority activist opinion.

@ThaBEN You bring up Marcus Phoenix... But didn't people ***** all over the way the character looked in gears to the point. That they basically changed them for Gears 4

@AgentGuapo well if that's the case, I'll only play it if it requires online connection and makes me purchase perks and abilities through micro transactions. And if she's not wearing a bikini on the box art, forget about it.

@ThaBEN Six months is plenty of time for anyone to put on weight, especially a young adult whose metabolism might be changing.

And I would love to see dad bod Kratos.

@TheGrizMachine There's definitely room in media for both stunning and average looking people.

I think the artist should be free to deliver their own vision. I remember loving Issac Clarke because he was very average looking in the original game (and this wasn't a "oh he looks like me!" thing either, because I probably more resemble his DS3 outings) it was just a really cool thing to see. It made him feel real and stand out.

But I think there's a double standard towards males and females in games. Men can actually be extremely varied in games without much fuss, but if a women isn't traditionally attractive, men are ready to get their pitchforks.

@Col_McCafferty I think it's you that have to seek help, but hey feel free to agree or disagree.

@ViolentEntity To be fair, I'm not saying aloy is ugly, but her face should be at least as skinny as the first game rather than being that puffy. I think the first trailer shows her face is normal like the first game.

She did have a very alluring walk in the first game.

@ViolentEntity Just a little, but the pic above in this pushsquares articles really highlight the difference between aloy face in the first game vs the second game. Most people won't care if aloy face is like that in the first game, it's just that people really don't like change.

@JapaneseSonic She's already badass in the first game, and I don't think making her face puffy is badass lol.

I think the issue is that I am a fat guy and I presume many folks (female and male) are too. The last thing we want to play is a fat face character (male or female) to remind us of ourselves. I don't want her to look like the female on the right photo (and how would there be make up in that time period?), but make her look a little better.

Makes me think back to Lara Croft appearing on the cover of FHM and just that some of the world really isn't like that anymore and I am glad. Don't care what she looks like, the game overall looks amazing and I cannot wait to play it.

Speaking candidly, the difference in Aloy's face did bugged me. And the difference not only from the first game, but from the last year's announcement trailler as well.

But that is okay. What really annoys me though is those arguments that games and their protagonists should be more "real". The real reality is that most of women (and men!) would much prefer to have a leaner and more defined face, instead of a more chubby one.

You want real? Ok. Create a mechanic in HFW where if Aloy eats a lot she gets chubby, becomes slower and gets tired faster. And if she, instead, exercise more and eats healthier she gets leaner, becomes faster and gets more stamina. How do you like reality now?

Literally shocked people are complaining about women not looking “feminine” enough in video games. News flash: not all women have perfect jawlines, hourglass bodies, and cover themselves in makeup. Especially not Alloy, look at the setting of the game she’s from. Let me just apply some makeup and do my hair before going out and hunting a giant beast. Gotta look beautiful for the boys lol.

Anyone actually complaining about this needs to go outside and get a sense of reality.

Regarding the tweet featured in the article... read some of the guy's other tweets, and you'll see exactly what kind of person you're dealing with.

Aloy is one of the best characters in gaming (let alone female characters). Reducing her to her physical appearance is abominable and unworthy of discussion.

I mean I get, where the guy is coming from, but you can't just suddenly change a character's face!

@JapaneseSonic I don't know about that, puffy face is more funny to me rather than badass. I mean donut drake is hilarious, too bad ND is too "mature" now to put donut drake in uncharted 4 lol.

@DeathByLasagna
It's a game about riding mechanical dinosaurs. If you want realism she would be staying at her tribe picking berries and raising kids, waiting for her man to return from the hunt in that world.

But to be clear and as I stated before. I don't care how she looks. But I do think it's weird when they change an established character's looks. Same as they did with Spider-Man remaster.
It's not about how they look, it's that we want consistency.

I don't care what Aloy looks like really. What I do care about is we're dealing with a last gen engine running PS4 code on the PS5. There have been some improvements on the environment design but LOD pop in is atrocious in this game. For a PS4 game it looks great, for a PS5 game it looks like a PS4 game.

@wiiware OMG - I have played all Uncharteds and this is the FIRST time I've heard about Donut Drake?!! Just watched a video - that shiz is Hilarious!

If anything, she should just have more tanned skin for living in the great outdoors. Not sure why they made it whiter. Also her ginger hair should have also darkened in the sun.

@Old-Red

But aren't they about people like you or me? People that were raised to see the world one way and then are suddenly told in the past couple of years that all of that was wrong? Imagine being told all your life that the sky is blue...then society suddenly decides, no. It's green. Does it affect me personally what color the sky is? No...but it does mess with my mind and if I question or doubt it guess what happens? I'm suddenly seen as a close minded and rotten human being who is a monster and selfish and doesn't care about anyone but myself.

That's what I see in the comments a lot, even these comments. People calling them scum, losers, don't have anything going on, hateful, ignorant...

It kind of sounds like how we used to treat people that WE didn't understand back in the 90s. Compassion and kindness needs to extend both ways. When someone is struggling to keep up you don't spit on them and kick them into the dirt. Extend a hand and try to help them along. Even if you say this issue isn't about them and it shouldn't affect them... you're telling them to flip their way of thinking that had been conditioned into them for the longest time. Some people are just slower to accept change than others but they never will if you refuse to understand their reservations. That's when they just start getting bitter and hateful.

@LordSteev There we go, the same old canned response to criticism. "You're offended!". Buddy, no one's offended by what you're saying, just embarrassed. Also, what is 'new age'?

Aloy is fatter now. That´s a fact. Maybe it´s the quarentine that packed the pounds, LOL.... I personally like my heroes to be ideals. Kratos is a huge man with a six pack and arms like trees, that´s great. And Aloy being a climber and always moving shouldn´t be fat. Make-up is out of the question of course, but I have never seen a fat military woman, ever. Those gals are ripped.

Beauty is nothing to be ashamed of. Beauty is NOT the opposite of skill or intelligence. There is nothing wrong with being beautiful. James Bond, Lara Croft, Ethan Hunt, Atomic Blonde, Indiana Jones, Leia Skywalker, Superman, Wonder Woman, all skilled, all badass, all beautiful and sexy.

More important is that the game looks like the PC version of zero dawn on ultra settings, it's not really next gen, That said the game looks great still.
About the model:
Haha the fan version looks ugly.
And I think all this sjw bs has to stop, and we need to stop feeding it.
For this particular game this character fits the world perfectly, in my view she is a hard ass archer/hunter and this is what I expect this kind of person would look like. Its not like she would be a petite girl with clothes that show off her assets.
But I get the point it comes accross like they made her slightly fatter just to appease the sjw crew which is most probably a more accurate reason as to why she gained some weight. Because I don't think Normally a studio would change the main character appearance like that.

@koffing it's all about the clickbait

@nessisonett I agree this whole thing is stupid. The most I could give people that don't like her face is that I agree it looks a little fatter. However, the actress you're referring to, at least omo, looks nothing like that model (Hannah Hoekstra, for reference).

I’ve seen other pictures of her from Forbidden West and she doesn’t look like that picture. It’s the angle, kinda like real life. Either way what’s the BFD?!

Yeah alright, but can we have a better inventory system in the next one or no? That dated/clunky/time waster of an inventory system is what really needs a facelift in my opinion.

The developers admitted to adding masculine features to Aloy's face. They literally said they added more weight to her face, does the woke crowd want to make all women look like men? I as a woman am mad that they made her look like a man, she looked perfect before.

Take the real Aloy and fan made Aloy here but with switched facial expressions. Both will look better with a pleasant happy smile and both will look less attractive with a grumpy face.

As for the real life person used for facial scanning to create the new Aloy my quess is NFL quarterback Andy Dalton.

Alloy looks great! And someone brought up abbey, omg abey is BAE!! 💜😻

Thought t's the norm for western devs these days. It's a taboo to make attractive female characters.

Thankfully we still have Japanese (and Asian) devs for pretty face characters in games.

I'll just post this as a last comment in this discussion and I'll leave it at that 😉
https://9gag.com/gag/aAb2DLo

@Zuljaras Hah! Dont bring Abby to the equation or it just breaks.

@pieprzeni-przegrani Can I have source for that?

@JapaneseSonic you've heard my wife say that haven't you ?? 🤣🤣

@JapaneseSonic 🤣🤣🤣

Fun fact, women come in all shapes and sizes, who would have knew! This outcry of a woman, a videogame character is quite embarrassing.

Plus she is in a post apocalyptic setting where survival is her top priority, not putting on makeup and going on tinder to find a date 🙄🙄 man social media is so toxic.

@DeathByLasagna excatly, great post, it's the basement dwellers and pervy weebs who have this warped sense of reality of women 🙄🙄 reason why they are single and always will be in the first place lol

PC b.s. not like she has a make up artist out there in the West

@ATaco "Compassion and kindness needs to extend both ways"

Hold on. You're not wrong on the surface here. But there's a lot of context missing from this sentiment.

Anyone who expressed differently from what society expected them to be, were at best, told they weren't broken, and at worst, killed.

Anyone who just doesn't want things to change to what they are use to, just get shouted at.

And after decade and decade of systematic abuse from the 'normal' people, I think anyone breaking from societal norms are handingly pretty well.

And breaking societal norms isn't new for us. First it was women, then black people, then gay people, now trans and non gender confirming individuals. And that's been going on for at least 100 years.

The issue people face is that it actually takes riots, and protest, and marches, and parades, before those who fit in to societal norms begin to listen to them.

And don't get me wrong, like I said, I'm a product of the 80s and 90s too. I was brought up with many subtle racist and homophobic beliefs that took me a long time to recognise.

My philosophy now, after having to educate myself, is when someone tells me the sky is green, I don't question their belief first, I question my belief first, and if my belief still holds true or I can't disprove it, then I can question them.

You can be skeptical without being averse.

This is seems like a very obvious troll post that was made with the intent that liberal games media would pick it up and write stories on it

@Tchunga

Agreed. They knew the liberal media would have a field day with it. It was low hanging fruit. Easy target.

@Tchunga nah, he wasn’t trolling. He was serious. He’s even come back to defend himself calling all who call him out on his nonsense “beta males”. But the original picture of the dolled up Aloy was actually a troll post mocking the type of people like the guy who posted this. I think he fell for the trap more than anyone else.

We’re at this point where if someone gives their opinion - I.e ‘I liked the attractive character models and I don’t see why you purposely downgrade them and make them all butch’ it’s just labelled as sexism or whatever, seems to be the industry and twitters defense to everything - you’re an ism or a phobe.

Which isn’t the case of 90 percent of the criticism. If anyone has a hang up on race and gender it’s seemingly the left wing devs. They aren’t doing this to male characters in nearly the same extent. And they haven’t explained their reasons for this. Do they think the 40 percent or so of ps gamers that are female want to play some fat girl with rosacea? Because most the girls I know that play games would want ‘their girl’ to look good.

Sadly the answer is just not to buy it if you don’t like this direction. They’ll soon change it back if they started to lose money. While people bought millions of copies of TLOU2, whatever they thought of it, it was validation for that horrendous dev guy who’s name I have happily forgotten.

@LordSteev Agree entirely. The women i hang out with would be putting on lots of make up if they had skin like the horizon girl.

I don’t get who is being targeted. I feel it’s transgenders and the gay community. It’s not women. Most women who play games like this bond with the character, they want their character and any love interests to look good.