Can anyone point to the official source of the claim, "The developers made Aloy to look ugly."? Because I am not finding it but I did find some of the early concept art for Aloy and the developers thoughts and direction of how they wanted to create her. I also went ahead and bought the art book for Horizon Zero Dawn to learn a bit more.
The art of Lois van Baarle
loish.net
The studio goes into detail about Aloy’s origins, her voice actor and how you shape part of her character
blog.playstation.com
"Some fans" are the ones complaining how Aloy looks ugly and do not like how she looks in the sequel. It appears she has a rounder face but it could be how the lighting is hitting her face giving the appearance of a less defined jawline, thus looking like a rounder face. Regardless of whether she has a rounder face or not is really trivial unless she may be pregnant but I doubt it, as Aloy is still too much into her youthful adventures exploring the wilds, helping others and learning more about the ancient civilization of the Old Ones and their technology.
This week showed players a new look at the upcoming Horizon Forbidden West, but some fans are upset over Aloy's updated character design.
gamerant.com
Apparently the heroine of this upcoming Playstation game looks too 'masculine'? Sure.
www.dailydot.com
Perhaps it is true, that some males and perhaps some females too, have an issue with how women are represented in video games concerning not looking like Victoria Secret models . Because you know, all women are feminine looking and all men are masculine looking. No such thing as diversity in the real world.
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Edit: It's so annoying to reread something I've wrote to completely get a different meaning than what was intended. Unfortunately I can often think of various things at once and easily crossover thoughts into other subjects, thus muddling what I was trying to say.
Yes, there is a difference, generally speaking, about how various creators from differing backgrounds and cultures might envision what to them is considered a strong looking female. Is that an issue though, considering that all cultures have their own beliefs, thought processes, beauty standards, ways of life and so on? Of course, not everyone within a culture/society agrees or follows along. When it comes to incorporating diversity, it means to me, that there are all kinds of people with different walks of life. Concerning specifically women since Aloy's appearance is the subject matter, realistically women all look different and not every woman cares about how she is visually presented to the world, to a certain extent. Some are more down to earth and focused on character over appearance, though that does not mean she doesn't care about her appearance but that is not what is most important to her. Especially in terms of impressing others by looks alone.
Aloy is a huntress and her character design portrays that along with her personality in how she dresses for practicality. Comparing how she looks from the first game to the sequel, she mostly looks the same to me with improved skin/freckle rendering and her hair looks a bit more detailed and so on. I don't really have any complaints about how she looks. What I am concerned about is how much more involved did they make the gameplay and what new things can Aloy learn and do. From what I have seen, thus far, her new moves and her new outfits look amazing. I cannot wait until Horizon Forbidden West comes out because I have a feeling it's going to be good and again become another favorite game of mine. I enjoy the story, the characters, the gameplay, the challenge, the quests, the graphics, the skill tree, the outfits, the looting...pretty much everything. I'm only sad that this is not on PC day one but I understand why not.
To sum up, everyone looks how they look and yet are made fun of because of the superficial who prioritize what their definition of beauty is to them. Whether in the real world or talking about a fictional character, everyone's true colors show.
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