Horizon Zero Dawn's female protagonist is already inspiring some cosplayers to create elaborate costumes even though the game won't release until 2017.

Cosplay has become increasingly popular with video game fans in recent years, as today's technology allows for the creation of some great looking characters that fans no doubt want to emulate. What is seen less often, however, is cosplay for a video game that hasn't even released yet.

But that's exactly what's happening with Horizon Zero Dawn, currently in development at Guerrilla Games. The game is not scheduled to launch until February 2017, but to be fair, it's hard to blame anyone for wanting to look like Aloya, the game's badass female protagonist. Horizon Zero Dawn's developer has stated that Aloya's design is based on other epic female heroes like Ripley from Alien and Ygritte from Game of Thrones, and the character's look has definitely gotten the attention of the cosplay community.

Kotaku published some photos today of cosplayer Raven in her Aloya outfit and it's clear she put a lot of effort into the costume. Raven stated that she made the entire outfit by hand, including the stitching on the leather skirt, which required a hole punch. The photos below were taken by Anne-Felur Boortman:

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It's no surprise that Horizon Zero Dawn is picking up some attention, as it was widely recognized as one of the best games of E3 2016. Game Rant also honored the game as one of our most anticipated RPG titles, although the title was originally slated for a 2016 release before being pushed back to 2017 in order to give the developers more time to polish up the experience.

Game director Mathijs de Jonges said the game is shaping up to be quite complex, with open world, high-quality visuals and an action-based combat system. These features were on display during the title's E3 gameplay demo. The director said that in addition to showing off the combat and graphics, the point of the demo was to make it clear that this is an original, interesting world that players should be excited to invest their time in.

The software is certainly a change of pace for Guerrilla Games, best known previously for developing PlayStation's Killzone series. Horizon Zero Dawn's colorful palette is certainly a different look from the gritty shooters that the developer is known for as well. It will be interesting to see if the game's graphics live up to their promise, however, considering that Guerrilla's last title, Killzone: Shadowfall was the subject of controversy after it failed to meet some gamers' expectations for 1080p resolution.

Horizon Zero Dawn will be available exclusively on PlayStation 4 starting February 28, 2017.

Source: Anne-Fleur Boortman (via Kotaku)