With everything that’s going on in the game industry right now, you might have forgotten that Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered will arrive on PS5 and PC tomorrow. It’s an easy thing to forget, given that not many people were asking for this remaster when it was first announced. In fact, many were hoping that this wouldn’t happen and that work would instead be done on something new to truly give the PS5 another great title and not a remaster of a game that’s only seven years old. However, it’s arriving tomorrow, and one of the teams behind it, Nixxes, is eager for you to learn everything that went into making it.
Principal Producer at Nixxes Linda Burgers released a statement that was put on the PlayStation Blog, and it broke down the many elements that went into this remaster. That included asking themselves what they could actual do to improve it within the realm of PS5 and PC:
“Before we began working on Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, we set out to assess what was possible. At the time, Horizon Forbidden Westhad been announced, but was still in development. Guerrilla gave us the privilege of getting an early look at the sequel. The stunning visuals and overall quality we saw in Horizon Forbidden West proved to be a huge opportunity for an enhanced version of Horizon Zero Dawn. From terrain, foliage, density, the set dressing in settlements, clouds, lighting and facial animation, to the overall cinematic quality, we saw a huge delta when we made comparisons.”
That says quite a lot, as it means they were working on this remaster a while back, even before the sequel title was released on PS5! That’s not what some were expecting, we’d bet, and it further paints an image of what Sony felt its console “needed” versus what gamers felt it needed.
One thing that Burgers noted was that it was indeed both Nixxes and Guerrilla Games who made this happen:
“The shared vision of Nixxes and Guerrilla was not to just upgrade the existing world of Horizon Zero Dawn, but to overhaul the visuals to match those of Horizon Forbidden West, without losing the original intent and identity of the first game. To achieve this, we were in constant contact with the art direction, animation, and lighting teams at Guerrilla.”
When you look at trailers and images for Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, you can tell that the upgrade is visually meaningful, but it’s up to you to determine if it’s worth buying.
