Horizon Zero Dawn's protagonist is inspired by Ripley and Ygritte

When the team at Guerrilla Games designed Horizon Zero Dawn's protagonist Aloy, it had certain other iconic characters in mind.

Horizon Zero Dawn took everyone by surprise at E3 2015. That's in part owed to its original setting. The other part is how - despite the demo's short length - main character Aloy left a good impression on everyone watching.

One of the reasons why her strong character really showed, is because developer Guerrilla had the right inspirations for it.

"We felt we had quite an original composition and combination of elements with the robots and the nature, so we also felt like it needed an original and strong character to go with that," game director Mathijs de Jonge told Official PlayStation Magazine - as reported by GamesRadar.

"One of the directions we were very interested in was a character like Sarah Connor in Terminator, Ripley in Alien or, more recently, Ygritte from Game Of Thrones; very strong female characters. That’s where we started."

Ellen Ripley meets Game of Thrones' Ygritte is not something you see everyday, and certainly puts even more pressure on the developers to deliver with the full game.