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We were beginning to think that Horizon Forbidden West’s anticipated expansion Burning Shores may be delayed – after all, it’s due out on 19th April, which is little over a month away. But a new PS Blog interview with game director Mathijs de Jonge confirms that Aloy’s adventure in Los Angeles is still very much on track – even if it’s light on new details.
The interview revolves around how developer Guerrilla Games is utilising the power of Sony’s new-gen system for the add-on. It’s worth repeating, of course, that despite the main game launching on both PS5 and PS4, the DLC will only be available on the former format. De Jonge notes that this is allowing the Dutch team to push the hardware even harder than the core campaign.
“The cityscape ruins of LA and its surroundings are highly detailed and require a lot of processing power as well as fast streaming technology to run properly – especially when the player is flying over the lands and can see a lot at once,” he explained. “One of the settlements is situated in and around those detailed ruins, and we were able to squeeze a lot of activity in there.”
De Jonge stopped short of sharing any spoilers, but did allude to one boss fight in particular that’s really taxing Sony’s platform: “Another notable one is a particular battle scene that requires a lot of memory and processing power! To achieve this grand vision both technically and creatively, we definitely were thankful for the many advantages that the PS5 hardware brings.”
Despite being a cross-gen game, we doubt many would argue against Horizon Forbidden West being one of the best looking games on the PS5, so we’re really excited to see what Guerrilla Games can achieve with the DLC. At this point, we’re just excited to hear the expansion is still on track – hopefully there’s a big media blowout in the coming weeks.
[source blog.playstation.com]
Comments 43
Looking forward to reading the reviews on this one. I’m about 50-50 on if I’d like to grab the DLC right away on this one.
Good work Push Square. Last week's article was a success.
Now do one about Spider-man 2. Cheers
Curious to see if there's a showcase before the release date or if it just going be shown off on a blog post
I am waiting to see if there's a complete physical version like HZD had. That's the only reason I haven't bought it yet.
I’m a little late to the party having just started HFW a few weeks ago, but what a wonderful and rewarding game. I would say that I’m looking forward to the expansion, but what I’m really looking forward to is work being over so I can get back to the base game.
Just read the blog, still no price or preorder, still doesn’t exist in the store.🤑
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/search/burning%20shores/1
It'll be interesting to see what the game can accomplish by being exclusively on current gen hardware.
I'm in two minds about this lack of marketing.
Entire games like Hi-Fi Rush are shadow dropped without much fanfare and do just fine, this is just DLC why do they need to do a long drawn out campaign in advance? Just wait till it is almost, or actually, purchasable before marketing it heavily.
The other part of me, conditioned on early marketing, thinks it's weird now. I could understand not doing it too far in advance, it's only a DLC, but I would have thought we'd have heard more by now.
Not a big deal either way. Unless it's a stinker i'll be picking it up day 1.
Feels like a state of play might be coming for this one over the next couple of weeks. Will be fascinating to see if this is PR fluff, or they really do push PS5's power, as we have had limited opportunities to see it in action to date due to the trend of continuing to release cross-gen games.
Similar was said before Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart came out, but i'm unconvinced that couldn't have been released on PS4
@Ralizah Yes! I'm excited to see what this DLC brings considering they are dropping the PS4. Hopefully at the very least flying mounts that fl
ay fast and don't just have go faster lines and blur to give the impression of speed.@Sil_Am "complete physical version like HZD had"
Good decision, that happened to us for HZD when my mom bought the game in August for my kids birthday in September right before the complete edition was announced.😝 Considering how long it's taking for them to give us a price a Complete Edition seems likely.
@rjejr I’m honestly a bit worried that they just don’t want to reveal the price, this leads me to think it might be a $30 or even $40 expansion, if that’s the case I’ll definitely not get it until it goes on sale.
Now that’s one outcome I hadn’t considered, burning shores being next gen only should mean vast improvements across the board. Or will it still be held back by a cross gen game slightly? Who knows. All I know is I want is to see that Titan wake up
Well well well
And I thought @Nestalgia cant be wrong lol
@themightyant "flying mounts that flay fast"
Sunwings flay fast enough, in my opinion.
Things like Hi-Fi Rush work because of Game Pass. A Shadow Drop means "available to millions of people right now to just play it!". And it worked for the Metroid trilogy because everyone has been waiting for that remaster since the infamous "Blast Ball" reveal a decade ago, and it feels like we've already played it by now. A whole generation of kids grew up, got old, stopped playing video games, and had kids that were already years done waiting for Metroid Prime trilogy since the time we were told it was rumored to be the E3 reveal. This is "only" DLC but it's till WEIRDLY silent on the marketing. But then they just released VR kit with no marketing and they aren't even selling it at retailers in the US yet. I'm sure there's a strategy here. Somewhere....
@Allfather @rjejr LOL! Part of me is kind of disappointed though, because I was kind of hoping my theory about it turning into a bigger stand-alone game was right. Can't really have too much Horizon.
Though without price and launch details I suppose it could still be that, just without a delay. No preorder is still unusual.
@Ralizah I'm more interested in if it'll still offer performance mode or if all this "taxing hardware utilization means they'll tell us to love 20-30fps.
Can't wait for this 😁
@NEStalgia Other PS5 only games have offered performance modes in exchange for visual and resolution downgrades. I don't see why this would be any different.
@NEStalgia Indeed the Sunwing's plasma attacks will flag a man's skin clean off at sixty paces
@Ralizah Yeah, including HFW itself, but, that was still "cross gen" and this is talking about pushing the hardware, so it'll still be interesting to see.
@NEStalgia "just without a delay"
Honestly I'm still not ruling our a delay over 1 blog post that didn't mention the price or open pre-orders only 4 weeks before release. Why have that blog post, it didn't say anything. Only reason I can think of it even exists is b/c of this. Seriously, what was the point?🤷♂️
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2023/03/horizon-forbidden-west-burning-shores-is-out-soon-on-ps5-and-weve-seen-next-to-nothing
@IOI "it might be a $30 or even $40 expansion"
I'm expecting $30 dlc for a $70 game. Yes it was $60 on PS4 but the DLC is only on PS5 so the PS4 price is irrelevant. $40 only if it's stand alone like Uncharted:The Lost Legacy or Miles Morales, which it could be, who knows, they aren't telling us anything. But yeah, I think they're waiting to announce the price b/c we aren't going to like it. Still has to be better than $60 for Bayonetta Origins on Switch which is only 10 hours but getting lots of 9/10 scores despite looking like a $30 indie.
@KaijuKaiser Are PS fans really less fools than Nintendo fans though? These days they two groups are more similar than different.
@KaijuKaiser @NEStalgia In all honesty Sony is definitely more anti-consumer than Nintendo is at present, though that tends to flip-flop every few years or so, so eventually Nintendo will hold that "title" again. That said the fact that the DLC isn't coming to PS4 has pretty much ensured I won't get the base-game until it drops below $15 on-sale.
And no I am not getting a PS5 as I can't afford a $500+ console, heck I could barely afford the PS3, PS4, and Switch at $300 each when they could actually be found at that price. PS3/PS4 cost $500+ now so I won't even be able to afford a replacement if either of them breakdown on me.
@KaijuKaiser I don't really see Sony as too different, they've been closely watching Nintendo's playbook and copying as closely as they can, with a mostly equally complacent fanbase. The only difference is occasionally they push too close to Nintendo for even the almost as fanatical fans to tolerate and there's pushback where Nintendo just never faces pushback and even when they do they just ignore it, which Sony will learn they can get away with soon, too.
The sad part is PS was put on the map in the beginning precisely because they were completely opposite of Nintendo's business practices, and now they're emulating them.
I would love to play Forbidden West but I cannot take another Gow Ragnarok situation where the character never shuts the **** up, especially from Aloy.
I borrowed forbidden west from a friend, so I won't buy the expansion if I don't own the game. I might wait for a complete edition at half price is the dlc is any good.
I highly doubt this will be delayed, I'm sure we'll get a detailed trailer or gameplay video before release.
@IOI Same plan here if that's the case. I refuse to pay $30-$40 for just new story DLC.
$20 is as high as I'm willing to spend on just story DLC, simple as that end of story.
@Nepp67 dude they fixed that if it was a issue at the beginning literally rarely hear aloy talk unless it's important.
@KidBoruto it's not just "story dlc". it's gonna offer a whole pleura of improvements for gameplay etc.
@KaijuKaiser Miles was $50? I think I spent way too much money when I bought my PS5. Maybe $50 looked good next to R&C at $70. 🤑
Just checked, I bought it for a BF sale at $29.99 in 2021 right after I bought my PS5 for $500 and R&C for $70 so I probably wasn't too bothered by the MSRP price for MM. 🤷♂️
So, now you got me thinking Burning shores is $40 as digital DLC but it goes to $50 if it's stand alone, and they have a complete edition for what, like $90, or is that just a Pokemon thing? 😂 I'm assuming it won't be fre adn they will tell us the price eventually. The Last if US tv show is over now, don't know what the hold-up is on pre-orders. 😝
@middyone I still hear that she talks during puzzles so I don't know
@middyone Oh neato. I guess I should hold off on playing Forbidden West until the DLC is released then.
@NEStalgia HFW: BS releases exactly 1 month from today, March 19 - April 19, and I still can't find it on the PS5 shop. Looked under "games", "add-ons" and "anticipated". Surely you would think it would fall under 1 of those categories? 😝
For the "pics or it didn't happen" crowd, lot's of pics.🤷
https://twitter.com/bobmrik/status/1637444722691043330?t=LUvUceP4LqMluGDsLZoJjA&s=19
@rjejr It's the weirdest thing. Then again The Last Worker is due to release for vr2 in 2 weeks and it's listed as "announced" on the store. And the farm sim vr game is April 6 or 7 and isn't listed at all. Maybe it's just ps store suckage reaching new lows?
It'd say maybe they're trying to add a tribute to Lance or change the ending since they have to write Sylens out now but they were weirdly quiet before that....
@NEStalgia PS store suckage doesn't explain something releasing in 30 days not having a DLC price announced somewhere. Especially when the same company had basically the same DLC price announced 3 month beforehand for the previous game. And you would think if Lance Reddick, who seems to have died somewhat suddenly, hadn't finished recording his lines by now they wouldn't just have reaffirmed the release date last week in the blog post.
And I'm not putting PS VR2 games in the same category as a AAA expansion for a big Sony game, sorry.
I still expect something weird, like no update for PS4 purchasers who upgraded for free, or it somehow won't work AT ALL w/ the PS++ version. Something that will be panned, beyond the price which at this point I'm sure isn't going to be cheap, let's put it that way. So, there's a reason beyond, oops we forget to market and price our AAA game's expansion releasing in less than a month. I'd bet you're correct about a delay. Not my house, but even money a few bucks.
@rjejr Yep, it does seem that way, unless they're just rolling the "poor widdle Sony can't do video games please stop big bad Microsoft" schtick. I just watched the credits for Call of the Mountain GOAT yesterday and there were more credits for marketing than developers.....yet they never marketed it outside ads in their own ecosystem.
But I'm still thinking delay. It's less than a month out. Shadow dropping AAA content when they have nothing else until June (which is really Squeenix) is just weird. I mean even for Jim Ryan's PS it's weird. And not even announcing a delay if it's delayed is weird. Maybe April 13 or whatever they just post on Twitter "available now". Maybe they're learning marketing from Square Enix and will drop it on Twitter then complain about sales under-performing a few weeks later?
Although they haven't even advertised GoW:R very much. Or hyped Spidey2. Really the only think they ever talk about is their farking HBO TV show.
@NEStalgia "Really the only think they ever talk about is their farking HBO TV show."
I really honestly thought, not just being snarky, that they were waiting for TLoU tv show to end a couple of weeks ago before promoting HFW:BS. I'm 100% certain Nintendo will start promoting BotW2 TotK big time AFTER their Mario movie releases in a few weeks. It also helps Nintendo that Zelda is out in mid May not mid April but Nintendo only ever has 1 thing going at a time. It's like their entire marketing ad dept is 1 part time intern.
And I'm sure people will point to how Frozen Wilds had little marketing before release, grumble knows things, but they had pre-orders up 3 months before release, for people to prepay 3 months before playing it. That's $ in the bank. They haven't gotten 1 penny for BS yet b/c there's no way to pay. Even the Sony stockholers should be getting mad at this point. Unless their all scrambling b/c their money was in SVB. Or some other failed/failing bank.🤑
Anyway you win the pool prize w/ a delay, I win if people who bought PS4 digital or physical can't get it or have to pay $10 more. OK that seems heavily weighted in my direction, you can also have waiting to announce a standalone $50 version. But surely something is going on. 🤷♂️
@rjejr And it's not like it's sharing marketing time with anything else. Other than spiderman there isn't anything else we even know of. Some said vr2 and call of the mountain but they aren't even marketing that either. They're not even selling vr2 in retail stores yet. Edge controller released at retail in Feb. Not a peep. What are their marketing people doing other than building ravagers on mountains in eastern Europe?
Still thinking it's a delay though. And if not that really is sad.
@NEStalgia Good point about the lack of overall marketing. February is 1 thing, that's the gaming duldrums, but it's late March now, spring, somebody needs to be earning their paychecks.
I could see giving "the accessory that costs more than the console" some breathing room, but even that isn't exactly trending on Twitter. Quiet all around. 🤷
@rjejr It doesn't help the accessory that it's had almost no marketing except for that Ozzy Osborne commercial (UK only?) splashes on PS store pages, and isn't actually present or advertised at any retailer online or offline, it's just a direct sales thing. Which itself is kind of weird. They won't advertise software. They won't advertise hardware. All they advertise is the TLoU TV show and Call of Duty.
@NEStalgia I didn't think an Ozzy commercial was real, I thought it was just a meme. 😂 Wasn't bad. (I'm a big Ozzy guy from way back when in case you didn't know how old, white and "classic rock" I was.😉)
PS VR2 has been out a whole month now huh? Could have promoted BS by now then couldn't they have? Guess they blew all their marketing budget for 2022-23 on Ozzy, got to wait until April 1st to spend again. 🤑
@rjejr I thought all the budget went into bribing the UK regulators into believing PlayStation is unprofitable without having exclusive skins in Call of Duty for the next decade? Ozzie's chump change next to that.
Look @NEStalgia yesterday on Twitter Guerilla Games finally announced pre-orders are up for Horizon… books. 😝
https://twitter.com/guerrilla/status/1638178774952067074?s=61&t=ILxH2jfsyOWgG7za0ZX3TQ
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