Horizon: Zero Dawn Fan Creates Impressive Colored Pencil Drawing

Horizon: Zero Dawn recently celebrated its fourth anniversary, and in those four years, the critically acclaimed game has built up an enthusiastic fanbase. For a new IP to generate so much buzz is rare in a gaming landscape where a sequel or spinoff is a much safer bet, Horizon: Zero Dawn delivered something that resonated with fans when it dropped in 2017. That excitement and passion amongst fans has led to all kinds of fan art, including this unbelievable colored pencil piece.

Horizon struck the right balance of action and RPG elements, while offering a beautiful post-apocalyptic world for players to explore. Another reason for the game's success is Aloy, the heroine at the heart of the game. She's tough, skilled, and has a fantastic design. Creating a strong character to anchor a franchise is hard to do, yet from the instant she appeared, Aloy became a fan favorite.

It is not surprising that a good amount of the fan art produced for Horizon: Zero Dawn features Aloy, as fans have really taken to the game's lead. The artist responsible for an incredibly life like colored pencil drawing of Aloy, AwkwardPotato1216, takes colored pencil art to the next level to the astonishment of fans commenting on their work. Somehow, only using colored pencils, the artist is able to bring Aloy to life in amazing detail. Horizon fans go all out, with an amazing cosplay of Aloy appearing recently as well.

AwkwardPotato1216 has some real talent with colored pencils, having also shared portraits of Ahsoka Tano and The Mandalorian from Star Wars. They say that Horizon: Zero Dawn is one of their favorite games, which should be no surprise as it is considered on of the best post-apocalyptic games of all time.

While Horizon: Zero Dawn really captured lightning in a bottle, developer Guerilla Games is hopeful that fans that took to the first game are in the mood for a sequel, as Horizon: Forbidden West is on the way soon. Aloy's voice actress, Ashly Burch, has said that Horizon:Forbidden West has a lot for fans of the first game to sink their teeth into. The game sends Aloy to a frontier land known as the Forbidden West to find the source of a mysterious and deadly plague.

Horizon: Zero Dawn sold over 10 million copies, so the sequel does have a lot to live up to. But given how strong the fan community is, and with Aloy returning, it stands a good chance of replicating that success.

Guerrilla Games' Horizon: Zero Dawn released on February 28, 2017, introducing the gaming populace to a vision of the future where humans live in a more tribal society as animalistic machines roam the planet. Its protagonist Aloy stands alongside Spider-Man, Kratos, and more as an icon of the PlayStation 4 era, but the game's hulking machines are just as iconic - and Guerrilla is celebrating that with a fourth anniversary giveaway.

Many of the mechanical beasts that players encounter in Horizon: Zero Dawn are based on real-world creatures, such as the "Tallnecks" that open up portions of Aloy's map looking like giraffes. Perhaps the most stand-out machine in the game is the "Thunderjaw," a combative bot based on the T-Rex that serves as one of its greatest challenges. Guerrilla Games knows this, and is now using the Thunderjaw to celebrate the game.