Zero Dawn’s Aloy Free On PS4, PS5

Horizon heroine Aloy trades the machine-infested wilds of a future Earth for the lush, fantasy lands of Teyvat when she arrives in Genshin Impact this fall, developer miHoYo announced today.

Genshin Impact’s upcoming “Savior From Another World” event sees Aloy join the Breath of the Wild-style gacha game as an exclusive 5-star character. She wields a bow, naturally, and has been designated as a Cryo-user, meaning she’ll be able to utilize a variety of ice-based abilities not seen in her original series.

Aloy, it has to be said, also looks incredibly adorable in the Genshin Impact art style.

The machine-hunting badass will be free for everyone who logs into Genshin Impact on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 after scheduled maintenance on October 13. A second deployment phase is also planned to coincide with a subsequent November 24 update. During both periods, Aloy is set to arrive via the in-game mail system, so be sure to check those inboxes.

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Genshin Impact has been a smash hit since Chinese developer miHoYo unleashed it on the world in 2024. In that time, it’s become one of the highest-grossing games in the mobile space, accruing an estimated $6 million a day in its first two months from players hoping for rare drops from its pseudo-gambling gacha system.

The hype hit a boiling point last March when collaboration events with Kentucky Fried Chicken had to be shut down in China after massive crowds violated the country’s covid-19 prevention measures.

Dutch studio Guerrilla Games introduced Aloy to the world in 2017’s Horizon: Zero Dawn. A sequel, Horizon: Forbidden West, is currently in development for a possible 2024 release, though PlayStation Studios head Herman Hulst recently said he “isn’t quite certain” it can make its intended holiday launch window.

This crossover event is the first of its kind for Genshin Impact, but Aloy herself previously appeared as a playable character in (where else) Fortnite earlier this year.