Veteran actor Ashly Burch is known for many roles at this point, ranging from punk rebel Chloe Price in the indie gem Life is Strange to the pyromaniac Tiny Tina in the Borderlands games. One of her most recognizable roles in her impressive resume, however, is one she didn't believe she'd even gotten: Aloy, the outcast looking to save the world in Guerrilla's hit open-world RPG Horizon Zero Dawn.
According to Burch, she knew it was the role for the lead in a franchise but not much else. After not hearing back for so long, however, she assumed she "didn't get it." Then, the audition came through again, so she gave it one more shot and then before she knew it, Burch was doing a recording session for a short cinematic.
"(At this point) I hadn't seen anything, I hadn't seen any art, I hadn't seen any renders," Burch explains to Ginx TV. "But after bringing me in for this E3 demo, they were like 'do you wanna see what the game looks like?' and they showed me the gameplay, and my jaw dropped because it's such a gorgeous game."
Horizon Zero Dawn became a huge success, something that Burch immediately knew was in the cards after seeing the first looks at the game. "It really hit me in that moment, like, 'OH, this is a big deal.' This is gonna be a really big deal."
Horizon Zero Dawn's titular character, Aloy, has been a point of contention over the years, especially with the sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, and its DLC, Burning Shores, where Aloy's queer identity is explored. Burch is no stranger to playing queer characters, and identifies with the queer community herself.
Even with the vitriol that having a queer woman as the lead of a game brought, Burch knew long before that development that she would have to step up and make sure she did Aloy justice due to her status as a female protagonist of a massive open-world game as Burch further explained.
"But I think Horizon was one of the first games of that type of scale where you could only play as Aloy. You can only play as a female character. And I definitely felt the responsibility of that, in that moment, where I was like, okay. I have to do a good job."
It's safe to say Burch did a good job considering that her first performance contributed to major success for Horizon Zero Dawn, which has led to a long line of follow-up installments for the franchise, including a recent remaster of Zero Dawn. While news is scarce on what's next for the series, fans will hopefully see Burch back in Aloy's shoes again in the coming years.
Horizon Zero Dawn star Ashly Burch responds to Sony's controversial AI Aloy by pushing for actor protections: "You have to compensate us fairly, and you have to tell us how you're using this AI."
