Horizon Zero Dawn's Aloy is coming to Genshin Impact and you can get her for free

With Horizon Forbidden West on the way, it makes sense that Sony would want to cross-promote the game and its characters with other popular games. It's little surprise, then, to hear that Aloy – the main character in Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West – is coming to Genshin Impact. She'll be going live in an upcoming update and will first be available to PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 players.

That doesn't mean PC and mobile players will be left out in the cold, as they'll have the opportunity to obtain Aloy after a period of PlayStation exclusivity. While details are fairly slim at the moment, Genshin Impact developer MiHoYo has confirmed that Aloy will be a five-star Cryo character, so if you've had poor luck with your gacha pulls, at least you're guaranteed a five-star character here.

MiHoYo hasn't detailed Aloy's abilities yet, but it has confirmed that she'll be available to PlayStation users after the version 2.1 update goes live. She'll be exclusive to the PlayStation versions of the game until the beginning of version 2.2 update maintenance, which is currently slated to begin on October 13th at 05:59 UTC+8 (October 12th at 5:59 PM EDT).

Once the version 2.2 update is live, Aloy will be free for everyone on all platforms who have yet to obtain her. At that point, it'll be mostly PC and mobile users, but PlayStation users who missed the boat the first time will be able to get her during this second stretch of the promotion as well. Aloy will be available to all users until the beginning of version 2.3 system maintenance, scheduled for November 24th at 05:59 UTC +8 (November 23rd at 5:59 PM EDT).

Strangely, after this announcement, we know when Aloy will no longer be available, even though we don't know when she'll launch. That'll become clearer when MiHoYo announces the dates for the version 2.1 rollout, and when she does go live, all players who are Adventure Rank 20 or above will receive her through in-game mail. We'll keep an eye out for more details on Aloy in Genshin Impact, so stay tuned for more.