Horizon Zero Dawn's Live-Action Movie Is Avoiding The Mistake That Would Have Killed The PlayStation Game Adaptation

By switching from a TV show to a movie, the live-action adaptation of Horizon Zero Dawn has avoided a huge mistake that could’ve ruined the franchise before it even began. Sony recently confirmed that its Horizon Zero Dawn adaptation will pivot to a movie after being developed for a couple of years as a streaming series for Netflix. While the Netflix show was an exciting prospect, changing the adaptation’s format to a theatrical feature film is a much better idea that will surely pay off in the long run.

There’s still a lot that could go wrong in the execution of the Horizon Zero Dawn movie. The casting of Aloy could make or break the project, and it’ll be tricky to translate the unique world of the Horizon games into live-action. But switching from a TV show to a movie is a great first step. Cinema is the best medium to tell this story. If Horizon Zero Dawn had been adapted as a TV series, it could’ve been a disaster.

Horizon Zero Dawn Getting A TV Show Instead Of A Movie Would’ve Been Disastrous

It Would Inevitably Feel Small Compared To The Games

In theory, a TV adaptation of Horizon Zero Dawn makes sense. The open-world game is full of side quests for Aloy to go on, so it has an episodic narrative that seems tailor-made for the format of serialized television. But what makes the Horizon games so great is their unique worldbuilding. The Horizon universe intertwines the luscious natural world with the metal-grinding spectacle of robots; it has the potential to be as dazzling as Avatar or Jurᴀssic Park. A TV budget wouldn’t have been able to accommodate that.

Even big-budget blockbuster TV shows still feel like small-scale television compared to their big-screen counterparts.

Netflix has spent a lot of money on shows like The Crown and Altered Carbon, but even big-budget blockbuster TV shows still feel like small-scale television compared to their big-screen counterparts. Marvel Studios’ Loki is about as expensive as TV shows come, and while it has some impressive CG wide sH๏τs, it confines most of its scenes to two characters talking in a room. A Horizon TV show would inevitably feel small compared to the vast, gorgeous world of the two games. This world deserves to be seen on the big screen in a Horizon Zero Dawn movie.

Some Of PlayStation’s Greatest Games Would Not Work On The Small Screen

The Last Of Us Is The Exception

Ever since PlayStation Productions was founded, it’s been relentlessly turning every major PlayStation gaming franchise into a movie or a TV show. But most of PlayStation’s big franchises are spectacle-driven and wouldn’t work on the small screen. The Last of Us worked great as an HBO drama, because it was basically already an HBO drama in video game form, but that’s the exception. The God of War TV show now has a different creative team because the original version was scrapped. God of War, Days Gone, Ghost of Tsushima — like Horizon Zero Dawn, they’re made for the big screen.