If you are lost Horizon Zero Dawn to PlayStation 4 in 2017, you can finally fix it. The video game, developed by Guerrilla Games it is in fact available on PC. You will interpret Aloy, a tribal outcast with a chip on his temple and an undeniable talent for killing robotic beasts. These mechanical monsters roam the Earth in a set that appears to have been ripped straight from that of A million years ago (a film classic directed by Don Chaffey and written by well-known screenwriters, writers and writers Brian Clemens, Harold Pinter, Edward Albee and Tom Stoppard).
Horizon Zero Dawn is a dystopian video game that says something original about Armageddon. Rather than telling a story about naive tribes battling the evils of intrusive technology, Horizon has the courage to weave a tale that encompasses complex themes. Whether it's dealing with abandonment issues or uncomfortable topics like ethnic cleansing, Guerrilla Games demonstrates a nuanced and mature level of storytelling that it has never managed to reach with its flagship series. Killzone on PlayStation console.
It helps that the Mass Effect-style conversation wheels give some leeway to Aloy's temperament. Almost all main missions and side missions allow you to answer NPC questions with a thoughtful, sincere or cold answer. While our decisions never really affect the overall story, these moment-by-moment choices bring you closer to Aloy and her person. It's a clever design decision that makes it easier to engage in the (initially emotionally distant) world of Horizon that manages to transform a story involving robotic monstrosities into a coherent and moving narrative. Just because the open world has a slightly absurd premise doesn't mean it can't offer a satisfying story.
The real flagship of Horizon? Those magnificent cars. Ranging from velociraptor-like observers up to clumsy Throat devourers, a colossal apex predator who would make a T-Rex pale, the game's curious creatures prove a joy to watch and fight. Horizon's machines are easy to manipulate but difficult to break down. Using Aloy's unlikely upgraded headset - don't worry, it makes more sense as the story unfolds - you can follow the patrol routes of these bizarre but powerful enemies and choose whether to control or kill them.
The real flagship of Horizon? Those magnificent cars.
You can sneak up on a Courser, hacking his systems to turn the stubby beast into a mostly obedient mount. Blow up a Thunder Devourer's turret, using a bow and arrow, before forcing it to the ground by immobilizing it with steel cables and explosive air bombs ... Thanks to a varied arsenal and an equally inventive host of enemies, the fighting between the girl and the Goliath mechatronics never tire.
It is fascinating to see these iron wonders simply interact with their environment when they think we are not looking at them. As happened in the many magical moments in which we encountered the wild stallions of Red Dead Redemption, the beasts of Horizon can fascinate with the same style of naturalistic behavior. You may observe nervous packs of Cervavito (moose-like robots) chewing knee-high grass, because apparently robots need to eat too. Or you might run into a group of smaller machines rushing out of the path of a deadly Exterminator, while a three-tonne cougar sniffs around for its next probable mechanized meal.
Aloy meets the world
The most captivating of all? The moment you raise the camera towards the sky to admire a heavy Collolungo walking quietly along a predetermined path. These magnificent leviathans function much like the walking versions of Far Cry's antenna towers, uncovering areas of the map once you climb to the top and engrave their satellite skulls. They are among the most majestic creatures ever seen in a video game. The first time we met one, we felt like Alan Grant after seeing Brachiosaurus grazing in Jurassic Park.
Encounters with Aloy's human companions don't go so well. When Horizon first launched on consoles three years ago, there's no denying it was a bit derivative. In 2020, those notes are even more out of tune. There is clearly a strong resemblance to Far Cry 3, as the map is dotted with camps that you will be encouraged to retake through repetitive stealth takedowns and silent archery kills. What makes these always the same and boring attacks useful? The promise of getting more XP and unlocking new abilities to tame the machines.
Want to earn that extravagant stealth boost that lets you launch yourself from 15 meters without being heard, or get that skill that allows Aloy to shoot arrows from her bow in slow motion whenever she jumps? You'd better kill all the primitive villains from the nearby fields. These base conquest missions appear all over the place, so it's a shame they never showed the kind of confidence Ubisoft finally achieved with Far Cry 5. Aloy is great at hitting large machines in wide plains, but put up in a camp. boxy with guards who can swarm from all sides, she is nowhere near proficient in how to fight them.
The wonderful world of Horizon quickly proves to be one of the most visually varied around.
However, the world of Horizon Zero Dawn is far more interesting than Hope County. Along with The Witcher 3, this is one of the most intriguing and credibly alive and varied open worlds seen on PC. As the story progresses and the restrictions Aloy has been bound to abide by fall, the huntress finds herself roaming around an extremely varied landscape. The snow-covered wastelands that surpass the tundras of Rise of the Tomb Raider eventually give way to grasslands that could pass through one of Red Dead Redemption 2's sultry deserts.
Performances
The relaunch of Zero Dawn and its expansion Frozen Wilds on PC, therefore, is smart marketing for PS5. Sony is missing out on making the game available to a new audience at this point in the PS4 lifecycle, and perhaps some PC gamers will be sufficiently interested in the sequel that hits PS5. (We don't expect Forbidden West to arrive on PC for several years, should it ever happen.)
The thought is valid, but it will only work if PC gamers have actually had a good experience with Horizon Zero Dawn. And while the overall quality of the game is not in doubt, the porting work appears not to have received a particularly high level of attention to detail. Horizon Zero Dawn is one of PS4's most technically ambitious games, but it was designed for far less advanced hardware than most gaming PCs today, and it seems like many people aren't getting the experience they expect.
The configuration we used allowed us to play the game without problems:
- AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU
- MSI B450M - A PRO MAX
- 16 GB of RAM Crucial Ballistix Tactical RGB 3200
- GeForce GTX 1080 GPU
With a GeForce GTX 1080 it is possible to get 100 FPS not always stable. To get them, we had to set the graphic details to high and to 1080p.
Having achieved good (but not great) performance at 1080p, we have increased the settings up to 1440p. Where the fps count turned out to be solid anyway (55 frames with Ultra graphics, and with 1440p resolution). In this case, the experience was certainly more convincing. The game can hit 68 FPS with Medium graphics and 4K resolution if you want a higher resolution (but the performance is really fluctuating).
The port comes with options to help stabilize performance, but in our experience, they don't work great. Blocking the game at a seemingly stable 30fps doesn't improve the experience - quite the opposite. If anything, it leads to even lower frame rates. The same goes for the dynamic resolution mode, which is supposed to maintain a solid frame rate but does nothing of the sort. It only kicks into action when things are really going wrong, and it appears to do so by reaching full resolution rather than gradually reducing the number of pixels. But with the “original” graphics preset, which, as far as we know, is identical to the PS4 version, the frame rate remains mostly above 60, and the uncertainties are greatly reduced.
One of the best reasons to play Horizon Zero Dawn on PC is its support for various resolutions and aspect ratios, including ultrawide monitors. After all, the title of this game itself evokes wide panoramas and long drawing distances. It looks as good as expected, but there's a catch: the footage still runs at its original resolution, with a weird blur effect on the side of the screen.
To sum it up, GeForce GTX 1080 graphics cards can run the game smoothly, but at what resolution? Although it is possible to get 33 FPS with 4K resolution and details at Ultra, and increase the frame rate to 55 FPS in Ultra 1440p and up to 72 FPS with 1080p, the advice is to use the preset obtainable through the GeForce Experience app and from there modify some parameters to obtain the best possible performance.
It must be said that even using newer graphics cards, such as a 2080 Ti, the framerate fluctuates between 40 and 50 FPS. It's all a mix of settings but surely the serious problem is due to the lack of optimization on the part of the developer.
Final comment
The PC port of Horizon Zero Dawn isn't great, but it's still a high-end and highly refined open world adventure worth experiencing today. While several stealth and exploratory elements are clearly taken from other games, Aloy's imaginative combat and captivating metallic enemies ensure that the time spent with Horizon will remain more than brightly etched in your memory for years to come.
