Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered review: Now with extra shine

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Review

By now, anyone who's a fan of action RPGs has probably played Horizon Zero Dawn from Guerilla Games. Released in 2017 for PS4, Horizon Zero Dawn was somewhat overshadowed by another action RPG: Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. However, fans finally caught up with the critics. Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the best games on PlayStation 4, with incredible art design and graphics, an original story, setting and characters, underlined by beautiful music. Now, Nixxes Software has teamed up with Guerilla to bring Horizon Zero Dawn up to today's visual standards with Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.

The best gets better

Set in a post-apocalyptic world of the 31st century, Horizon Zero Dawn is a classic quest and coming-of-age story. Humans have returned to richly imagined but relatively primitive tribal cultures. Machines have evolved into sentient, animal-like constructs that hunt and are hunted by humans for parts. The stories of ancient humans, that is, of our own times, have become the stuff of myths and legends. The central character of Horizon Zero Dawn is Aloy, a young outcast from the Nora tribe. His quest is to know who his mother was, why she was cast out, and what happened to the old world. Horizon Zero Dawn has a compelling story and Aloy is a memorable hero.

Horizon Zero Dawn is an open world action role-playing game. Aloy searches for supplies, searches machines for parts, and crafts new weapons and consumables. There is a main story quest and several side quests. Aloy is an agile character and climbing is an important aspect of exploration. In other words, the gameplay is pretty standard for the genre. It's also where Horizon Zero Dawn shows its age. The map is packed with objectives and the game's UI is also a bit unstylish.

However, thanks to some stellar art direction, Horizon Zero Dawn was, and remains, one of the most beautiful games ever made. His vision of a distant future in the American mountain west is detailed and the tribal cultures and machines are striking. Just in comparison to some of the newer, next-gen games, Horizon Zero Dawn feels dated. Overall, few people playing Horizon Zero Dawn in 2024 would complain about its appearance.

Room for improvement

Players who definitely notice Horizon Zero Dawn's slightly dated look are those who played its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West. As good as the first game seemed, the sequel surpassed it in almost every way. Improved lighting, water, plants, character models, faces, and animations. It's really for that reason that Nixxes and Guerilla decided to give Horizon Zero Dawn a pretty significant shine.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered focuses almost entirely on graphics and game performance. Dialogue animations have been enhanced with over 10 hours of additional motion capture and are highlighted by a new camera distance. Overall, character faces and skin textures, at least for the protagonists, have been improved, although some of the minor NPCs still look dated. Water and reflections are much better, and lighting and textures are sharper and more dramatic. Almost all of the foliage in the game has been completely redone. Overall performance has been improved and players can now expect 60fps in performance mode, 30fps in 4K quality mode, and 40fps in balanced settings. Game audio has been refined and spatial location is more pronounced when using headphones.

When focusing on graphics, some core game components such as movement animations, quest design, and map are still behind the curve of Horizon Forbidden West and other recent games. Despite improvements made in the remastered edition, hair looks and moves unnaturally, and characters still often pass through dense vegetation.

To buy or not to buy

By almost every measure, Horizon Zero Dawn is a classic action RPG. For anyone who missed it, the remastered edition is definitely the version to pick up. For those who already own it, upgrading to Remastered costs a reasonable $10 and at least on PS5, PS4 cloud saves work fine. If the new and improved visuals inspire people to play or replay, that's a win for everyone.