Sony's Horizon Zero Dawn Show Could Be Great--If It Can Avoid These Pitfalls

gamespot.com:

After years of intensely isolationist behavior, Sony's PlayStation arm is branching out from just making video games for its own system, looking to capture more eyeballs from wider culture. Some of that is releasing their previously-exclusive games on PC, but they're also getting into television. A Last of Us television show is already well underway for HBO, and the company recently revealed that it plans to make a show based on Horizon Zero Dawn with Netflix. Recent rumors suggest that it could be a prequel.

What will that show look like? Sony and Netflix have an uphill battle on their hands as they try to bring this sci-fi adventure to life unless they actively work to avoid the pitfalls of past productions.

According to games journalist Jeff Grubb of Giant Bomb, the story is currently designed with a split timeline. «The show as pitched right now is called Horizon: 2074, and it will split its time between the timeline you see in the games and the timeline where things begin to fall,» Grubb said on a recent episode of his GrubbSnax podcast. «And the idea is that this is not a reboot, a remake, or a sort of reimagining of the game's storyline; it will take parallel and sort of explain other elements that happen in the game.»

First, we need to spoil Horizon Zero Dawn. It's been five years, you had your chance! The Horizon games are, aesthetically, all about the protagonist Aloy fighting large robotic creatures that look like dinosaurs, oxen, and other burly prehistoric beasts. The backstory, meanwhile, takes place a thousand years earlier and tells the story of AI engineer Elizabet Sobeck in a battle of morals, corporations, and ego with capitalist and inventor Ted Faro.

Ted Faro has created a self-replicating AI that