Sony would love it if Horizon Zero Dawn turned into an ongoing series. That might sound obvious, but words from a Sony executive show how high the company’s hopes are for protagonist Aloy and her mysterious world.

Aloy is “a PlayStation icon of the future,” said Sony Interactive Entertainment UK product manager Jon Edwards, speaking to MVC UK. So, does that mean she’s going to get a sequel and appear in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale 2? Well, “nothing has been announced,” Edwards explained. “But I think there’s a lot of potential for this to be an exciting new franchise for us – we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Return on Investment

I mean, that’s pretty normal. If you spend a bunch of money and time on something, you want it to last a while, unlike that table I bought from IKEA. A game simply being profitable isn’t enough these days when it starts to get a lot of attention. An indie game or a mid-sized game can make enough money to keep a company going, but when games get big, words like “disappoint” and “underperform” get thrown around by analysts and investors, and suddenly success that isn’t big enough might as well be failure. Sony seems to be very invested in making Horizon Zero Dawn work. Edwards said pre-orders are “in line with expectations” and says the company is optimistic.

“It was also on many ‘Most Anticipated Games of 2017’ lists which added to our confidence,” Edwards said. Hey, Jon – you’re welcome.

The company’s mascots and stars have evolved over time. The early days saw characters cute and fun characters like Crash Bandicoot and Ratchet & Clank before growing into ‘mature’ fare like God of War‘s Kratos, the angriest man on earth. Kratos was followed by the much friendlier Nathan Drake and LittleBigPlanet‘s adorably creepy Sackboy. A badass archer that hunts robot giraffes seems like a pretty good addition.

I just hope the sequel has a name that doesn’t sound like it was assembled from random video game words. We’re super excited for Horizon Zero Dawn and hope just as much as Sony does that it becomes a staple for the company.