This Horizon Zero Dawn smoke looks like Conan O'Brien and I'm freaking out a little
Horizon Zero Dawn is the source of endless beautiful screenshots but - to my knowledge - none of them have ever included a cameo from one of America's favorite talk show hosts. Finally, that oversight has been addressed. In an image posted by Reddit user AtlasFlynn today, Aloy witnesses the spectral form of Conan O'Brien in a distant plume of volcanic smoke. Now how's that for a Frozen Wilds DLC selling point?
In case you can't see the resemblance, here's Reddit user jredi with a quick photo-manipulated assist that should cinch it for you.
The image has a religious quality to it, as if Aloy's meeting an ancestral spirit at the end of a difficult journey of self discovery. You know, like Simba being visited by his father Mufasa after years of running away from his responsibilities as rightful Lion King.
Other commenters observed that the distant shape, in fact, looks more like a visitation from the Ghost of Abraham Lincoln…
Phantom Matt Smith…
… or Tina Fey. This one doesn't need an extra spirit-world joke because "fey" already means that.
I can kinda see those, too (last three photo illustrations by yours truly), but I'm still going with Conan. Not because he's the one I saw first, but because it would totally explain Aloy's voluminous copper locks if she really is a descendant of Conan O'Brien (not to mention how talkative she is even when nobody else is around to hear it). This is totally my new headconan. Headcanon. Sorry.
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If all this iconic smoke has you excited to search for more celebrity apparitions in post-post-apocalyptic Yellowstone, make sure you read through our Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds tips first.
I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.