Horizon Zero Dawn fans turn Aloy into an anthropomorphic duck

Horizon Zero Dawn has been out for PS4 for at least five years, and it has been a year and a half since it has been ported to the PC. Even as fans are waiting for the sequel, it seems that there are players who are looking for new things yet undiscovered in the game. One of the players might have found a hidden easter egg that successfully remained hidden until now.

A fan has discovered an unused character model inside the game files. This allows players to replace Aloy's character model with that of an anthropomorphic duck. It is impressive that players still find these secrets inside the game even after it has been out for several years.

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Horizon Zero Dawn has a hidden anthropomorphic duck character model inside the game

The character looks like one of the test models that was used in the early build of Horizon Zero Dawn. It looks like a plain black human model, and it seems almost nondescript except for the huge duck head poking out of the neck. The character seems to be wearing a sandwich board that says, "this is a legacy char[acter], please replace me," and encourages players who have questions to contact the email address [email protected].

The character is popularly known as Duckman due to the sandwich board. It was found by a Redditor _PortPort_ while using a cheat menu mod inside the PC version of the game. The mod lets players tweak the game's graphics, change gameplay features, spawn in NPCs, and mess around with the game files.

_PortPort_ said that they were able to swap the protagonist's character model with a duck using the cheat menu. Another Redditor said they found the model after downloading a file manager mod using which they spliced the game. This could be an example of how developers leave comedic easter eggs in games for players to find.

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Are there other undiscovered easter eggs in the game?

Although it is a mystery why this anthropomorphic duck character was included in Horizon Zero Dawn, it is probably nothing more than an inside joke left in the game. Despite the sandwich board specifying that it is a legacy character and should be deleted, there was an email address included. This suggests that Guerrilla Games or a developer wanted it to be found.

Duckman seems to be an amusing treat left inside the game by a developer with a sense of humor. What's odd is how long it was until this joke remained a secret since Horizon Zero Dawn has been out for five years. Players might be wondering what other human-animal hybrids might be hiding inside the game.