What Happened To Netflix’s Horizon Zero Dawn Series?

Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Zero Dawn series has continued to evolve since its release in 2017. The game has received a sequel, a remaster, a VR spin-off, a LEGO game, and at one point it was even in development to become a TV show.

Horizon Zero Dawn is an open-world action-adventure role-playing game. The story follows the quest of the main character Aloy, who lives in a post-apocalyptic Earth overrun by animal-like machines, as she attempts to unravel the secrets of her past and find out what caused the world to end. Horizon Zero Dawn was a brand-new IP from Guerrilla Games and quickly became popular thanks to its original world, stunning graphics, and impactful story. A sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, was released in 2022 and garnered similar positivity.

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Horizon Zero Dawn TV Show Was In The Works For Netflix

Video game adaptations are becoming the flavor of the month in Hollywood, thanks to successes like Fallout and The Last of Us. It was hardly a surprise then that a Hollywood studio set its sights on Horizon Zero Dawn’s vibrant universe. In 2022, it was announced that a TV series based on Horizon Zero Dawn was in early development at Netflix. Shortly after this, it was revealed that The Umbrella Academy showrunner Steve Blackman had boarded the series as an executive producer and was developing the show with Michelle Lovretta (Killjoys).

In an interview with Netflix’s Tudum back in August 2022, Blackman revealed he was excitedly working on developing Horizon Zero Dawn as a series. The showrunner praised Guerrilla’s game and story, revealing that “Aloy will be a main character in our story,” and that they planned to make the series for “all types of viewers.” The series was in development under Blackman’s production house, Irish Cowboy Productions. At one point, the series was rumored to take place over two timelines, with one set in 2074 before the fall of humanity and the other in Aloy’s Horizon Zero Dawn timeline.

Why Development On the Horizon Zero Dawn Series Was Shelved

While all systems were go on the Horizon Zero Dawn series for a time, the project was ultimately shelved. In June 2024, Rolling Stone reported that twelve staffers had accused Blackman of bullying, and toxic and manipulative behavior. An HR complaint also alleged that Blackman made sexist, homophobic, and transphobic remarks. Blackman denied these allegations, saying they were “entirely untrue.”

Rolling Stone reporter Cheyenne Roundtree then reported about a week later that they had learned Horizon Zero Dawn and Blackman’s other project at Netflix, Orbital, were no longer moving forward. A statement from Blackman’s spokesperson said it was “preposterous” to suggest that the allegations against Blackman were responsible for the cancelation of the project, and instead pointed to the impact of the writer’s and actor’s guild strikes as the reason.

Will A Horizon Zero Dawn Series Ever Release?

This was the last anything has been heard about Netflix’s Horizon Zero Dawn series. The lack of progress on the series since Blackman’s departure is a worrying sign that the adaptation is dead. Prime Video’s God of War series adaptation recently lost its showrunners. However, a new executive producer was announced only a couple of weeks after their departure, signaling the streamer’s dedication to the project. Netflix’s silence on the Horizon series and the lack of any new development teams being brought on board suggests the series may be over, at least for Netflix.

While no reason for the shelving has been given by Netflix it may have been a combination of factors that led to its cancelation. One of these factors may be the budget needed for a Horizon series to be adapted properly. Horizon Zero Dawn is set in a post-apocalyptic world full of robot dinosaurs and advanced machinery. Concepts like that would no doubt require hefty production and visual effects budgets for them to be completed to a standard that fans would be happy with.

Horizon Zero Dawn Might Be Best Suited For Animation

One potential option that could ease the pressures of the budget and revitalize the movement on the Horizon Zero Dawn adaptation would be for it to go down the animation route. Many video game adaptations have followed this trend recently, with Cyberpunk 2077, Tomb Raider, and League of Legends, all finding success in the animation space. An animated series would allow the Horizon Zero Dawn adaptation to be recreated as faithfully as possible to the source material and could also provide new insight into corners of the game’s world or lore that wouldn’t have been possible on a live-action budget.

IP adaptations in Hollywood can take years to get off the ground. Five Nights at Freddy’s is a prime example, with the movie going through almost ten years of development before it was released as a feature film in 2023, and went on to become Blumhouse’s highest-grossing release worldwide. However, sometimes the effort is worth it as fans have flocked to support faithful video game adaptations. A Horizon Zero Dawn TV series may be dormant for now, but that doesn’t mean it won’t receive a successful screen adaptation in the future.

Horizon

The Horizon franchise follows Aloy as she is forced to contend with a series of powerful, towering robotic creatures in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The third-person action-RPG has already seen a sequel with Horizon: Forbidden West and gives players the freedom to explore the open world as they see fit.

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