Platform: PS5
It feels as though Sony is in an odd place with its first-party exclusive titles. Over the last few console generations, PlayStation has staked claim to being the place to play deep, expansive, story-driven, single-player AAA games, from the likes of the original The Last Of Us back on PS3, through the modern God Of War games, Marvel’s Spider-Man trilogy, and, of course, Horizon. All of them pushed the boundaries of what their respective launch hardware could do, looked astounding, and won over legions of fans in the process.
They all also take forever to make, especially to those exacting standards, which probably goes some way in explaining why we’ve been seeing so many remakes and remasters of them in recent years. They keep the games readily available for players, looking their absolute best on ever more powerful hardware, and potentially make those console upgrades look more attractive (oh hi, PS5 Pro).
Textures are so detailed they could pass as photo-real, while water looks and feels, when moving through it, like actual fluid.
Yet there’s no escaping the fact that some of them feel inessential, precisely because the originals looked so good. Even here in 2024, there are surely few beyond the most ardent spec-obsessives who’d think Guerrilla Games’ original Horizon Zero Dawn from 2017 looks bad. So does it need the remaster treatment? Not really. Are we glad it got it anyway? Yes.
Shepherded by expert porting studio Nixxes, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is a spectacular vision. The strange post-apocalyptic world of protagonist Aloy, where hunter-gatherer tribes share the open plains with dangerous robotic creatures that mimic organic life, has never looked better. Entire biomes have been rebuilt, with flora more accurately reflecting both real-world inspirations and original concept art. Textures are so detailed they could pass as photo-real, while water looks and feels, when moving through it, like actual fluid. Meanwhile, all those robot dinosaurs and metal monsters are so detailed you can spot their weak spots even without Aloy’s in-game HUD highlighting them – lost technology from the fallen “Metal World” – while human characters are so, well, human that they practically cross the uncanny valley.
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There’s a real sense of everything being handcrafted, too – lighting isn’t better across the board just because of fancy tech advances over the last seven years, but because Nixxes has painstakingly relit scenes and locations to create the precise tone and feel they want. Hours of new motion capture has been done too, better presenting conversations and improving certain cutscenes, resulting in Zero Dawn Remastered having more of the cinematic quality found in Horizon Forbidden West.
Like many remasters in the 4K era, this offers a variety of video quality options. True 4K at 30fps might normally be the go-to for those who want the best image quality, but it’s testament to just how brilliantly Zero Dawn has been handled that performance mode – which prioritises 60fps for smoother gameplay at a slightly lower resolution – still looks so good that only those aforementioned spec-obsessives might clock the difference.
Of course, none of that would matter if the game underneath all that glitz and glam were a disappointment, but Zero Dawn remains the stunning game it always was. Aloy’s journey is captivating from the moment you first take control of her as a raw and emotionally bruised young girl, desperate to understand why she’s been exiled from what passes for society, right through to the proud, powerful warrior she becomes, and through the trials she faces in The Frozen Wilds expansion, which is also included here.
While none of the changes in Remastered materially change the mechanics – you can still expect plenty of exploration, crafting, and combat, all while hunting robot dinosaurs – they do change the experience. This is a more immersive world than before, and Aloy feels more a part of it than ever. This is now, unquestionably, the best way to experience Aloy’s journey, especially if you have a 4K TV.