I’ve had a couple requests to do Horizon: Zero Dawn so I thought I’d give it a try. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, according to Steam I sunk over 50 hours into it. Not even as woke as I thought! Especially with Ashley Burch voicing the protagonist (nothing against her personally, she has a good range of voice work, but her youtube channel went super woke and she works on lots of woke games).
Gender: 3 out of 5:The main character, Aloy, is a woman, so there’s that. Other than her, the male/female population is pretty even, though some women hold positions of power over the men, (the village Aloy is from is ran by women and worships a goddess, but there’s a reason for that, as you will learn through playing), so I gave it another point. There are also several very capable men but almost as many who are weak, cowardly, evil or generally incompetent, which interestingly enough gave them a lot more character development. This doesn’t seem to be the case with the women, who often give Aloy quests to fix or find some man who wronged them or hasn’t come back. Women also seem to get along with each other more than the men.
Sexuality: 1 out of 5: This isn’t really brought up much aside from a few side quests.
Race: 1 out of 5: People of all races are present in this post-apocalyptic future and once you get into the plot more, you’ll know why.
Anachronism: 0 out of 5: post-apocalyptic future, doesn’t apply.
Overall: 5 out of 20: My only real issue was with how there seems to be far more competent women than men. The major villain is a man, and I’m fine with that, so is one of the most noble characters in the game. Aloy is also raised by a man who took her in and it’s clear she loves and respects him very much, so it’s not like all men are shown in an unfavorable light, which is why I didn’t rate it as high as I could have.
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