Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Sounds Like a Ridiculously Good PS5 Upgrade

Honestly, very very excited to play this! And the price was right.

Already bought the upgrade. Currently playing Forbidden West and it is so gorgeous it blows my mind. I’m a fan of Horizon so that was an easy decision to make.

They can polish this turd as much as they want, it's still a turd. If the next Horizon game isn't a massive improvement in structure and especially writing they will start facing the same problems Ubisoft are facing now.

Surprised to see hate for this game, thought it was amazing the first time round. Preordered and glad to read they put the effort in.

As long as there’s a new plat, I’ll playthrough it again as some point. While the series doesn’t quite hit for me in the way God of War does, I still think it’s very good. Seems to get a lot of unwarranted hate imo.

Bought it for PC. Can't wait to jump back in

@Gewertzx damn now that's an opinion. Even if I didn't like a game baffles me people can call a game that's widely called one of the best on PS4 a turd 😅

@RubyCarbuncle I’m not talking about the remake though, i’ve found the series itself gets a lot of shade

@Gewertzx
I disagree. I am not a fan of remasters but i think if Ubi remastered their Rainbow Six Vegas series, Splinter Cell and did a new gen Wildlands Update they would’ve done a lot better. Their latest socalled ‘new’ games were clones allready.

This game began development in 2011. Apparently it ended development in 2024. Absolutely ridiculous.

@Jswift56 Standards are increasing over time. Back when Horizon 1 came out there were millions of PS4 users who still weren't bored of the bland open world formula so they enjoyed it and gave it scores it didn't deserve. By the time the sequel came out the jig was up. If Horizon 3 isn't a massive shake up with an actually interesting narrative they will have a hole in their pockets like Ubisoft.

@AdamNovice
If they called it a ps5 upgrade, no one would complain. 😊

For £10 this sounds a pretty good deal to me.

I understand its not long since the original, but considering the work it seems they are putting in, and the cheap upgrade price I just dont see the problem here, particularly if they are adding a pro enhancement too.

@Gewertzx I think the Horizon games are pretty average outside of visuals/combat, but let’s not lie here and pretend there weren’t a million edits on twitter and other social media forums going around for Horizon Forbidden West talking how the game was “woke” as it had made Aloy look “fat and ugly”.

That definitely plays a part for some of the hate it gets online, right wing grifters will over hate on anything that isn’t a white straight male on the cover, only exception is when a female character is overly sexualised like in Stellar Blade!

@DonJorginho ooph, those pesky right wingers must really hate Stellar Blade

Looking forward to this. I love the Horizon series.

@Dalamar Good point! Edited my post to include that game too, forgot about the sex pests 😉

I won't be playing this remaster. After viewing side-by-side footage of this and the original, I really don't like the change in color palette and much more aggressively bright lighting. Yet another PlayStation remaster that sacrifices art direction for raw detail.

I thought that the written story in Forbidden West was a bit crap but Zero Dawn's was fantastic. Love this game so I'll be forking out a tenner.

@DonJorginho I just want you to know that what you are saying right now is reinforcing the fact that creating games that appear woke is a bad business move.

And no, the real reason Starfield, Horizon and AC disappoint and are headed for straight up failure is because the gameplay and writing are painfully generic. The games are outdated. BG3 is innovative in it's genre and ambitious.

@colonelkilgore
I think im in the same place as you are on this - the 2 GOW games were better imo, but both the original Horizon and its sequel were good games which were well polished.

I see a generally high level of completely undeserved criticism towards a lot of Sony games to be fair (not usually from critics though), but, Horizon does seem to get more than others, which to me only seemed to increase massively when the Burning shores dlc was released....

@Gewertzx You say that, but what even is “woke”.

Lots of grifters called Silent Hill 2 Remake woke for making Angela “look like a man”, but it’s just sold 1m copies in 3 days, so that can’t be a failure can it?

Woke is a buzzword used for people who aren’t eloquent enough to critique things, games like Starfield and Concord don’t fail because they’re woke, they fail because they’re bland and lacking ambition, they’re by the numbers games looking to reach wider audiences whilst failing to captivate any of the specific niches enough to become long term fans.

Horizon has been a success, but that’s simply because pretty robot dinosaur games are a hard concept to fail at.

This isn't just an AI-upscale. There's rerecorded dialog, new motion capture, etc. Significant work ≠ cash-grab.

@RubyCarbuncle, do you feel the same way if there's a newer version of your car?

@ApostateMage Zero Dawn had such a great story, at least the first half, and the dynamic between Aloy and Sylens was at its best here.

@BookhouseBoy That's a Hard Concept for people to grasp right along with people having a Hard time simply ignoring games that they don't like.

The comments are ridiculous.

• I don't like something.
• WOOAAH, It's gamer outrage!!!1

@Mikey856
Agreed! Add to that the fact that it’s my first time playing it on an OLED with HDR and you can imagine the way I feel. Actually, I find myself often just stopping to look around at the beauty of the scenery, lighting effects and character animation. Gameplay mechanics are also a notch above Zero Dawn so I’m really enjoying the game 🙂

This is what the PS5 is for... prettier versions of PS4 games. PS5 Pro? Even prettier versions. New games? Look elsewhere.

Sony decided they wanted $10 from me. Well played.

@Mikey856
RE melting eyes - did you by chance see the digital foundry hour long video about Pro a couple of weeks ago? HFW was 1 of the only games they had really decent footage of imo (not their fault), and the pro upgrade looked amazing, even over Youtube (I did watch on my TV though).
What's the word they like to use - "transformative" - easy agree from me.

I will pay £10 for auto loot.

@LowDefAl
You know, im sure i remember a time when "woke" was regarded as a positive word. Now unfortunately, it feels like others have "re purposed" it...
(Or it might just be me that sees it as a positive word)

"Ridiculously good upgrade"

"Voxel cloud rendering"

confused millennial noises

More NPCs and more atmospheric actions for them does sound tangibly neat, though.

I would love to have the amount of time some people seem to have to come into comment sections of articles about games I loathe to lambast them for... existing.

$10 well spent. Looking forward to (re)playing this and Forbidden West for its DLC I never played.

Worth replaying because the story in this game was excellent.

It does look good, however the PS4 version itself already looked amazing. When the next installment comes out, I may be tempted to run back through Zero Dawn and Forbidden West first.

tbh for £10 its worth a sniff. I never stayed around to the end of it first time thru and would like to see it out.

No hate here; always thought it a good old romp - doesnt take itself seriously and isnt preaching. These days that worth £10

@LowDefAl maybe, maybe not… for context there are many ps4 games that got remastered for ps5 with a separate trophy list from both Sony (Spider-man, Ghost of Tsushima, Last of Us Part 2) as well as from third parties (Control, Final Fantasy VII Remake, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order).

@Mikey856
Then I think we will both be happy in 3 weeks time!

I bought it on PS4, and I also bought it on PC.

Unless they add new content it would be a very foolish purchase, I've already completed the first one to 100% 3 times.

@TrickyDicky99 it's getting really silly now.

still no confirmation if it'll be able to run at 4K 60 fps on a base ps5. Anyone know if it will?

Didn't we already upgrade it? I know it runs better on ps5. Hard to keep track of all the regurgitated remakes.

@TrickyDicky99 Good point, well put..

Yeah this is pretty much a full PS5 remake and at £10 i can't complain.

@Gewertzx Its always new accounts with blank profile pics that make comments like this.

Probably go in for this at a later time. HFW still feels fairly fresh in my mind; add to that some open world fatigue and I'm just not craving a return to HZD just yet.

Weird to see people dumping on the first though. It was an enjoyable take on open worlds at the time. Writing was solid, combat was fun, enemies were cool... it wasn't without some flaws or retreads but it's still up there with the best of the PS4 generation imo. For $10 I'll upgrade eventually.

@RubyCarbuncle its a 10$ upgrade , and they are also letting people that got it for free upgrade for 10$ as well. if it was as the kids say " cash grab", they would have charged more , and not let people with the free copy upgrade?

@RubyCarbuncle mate its just a saying , " as the kids say these days , (insert word), " i didn't call you a kid lol. the fact that people want bigger and more creative games only means it takes longer to develop these games. also i've seen plenty of new ip's as of late this site has covered. just because it doesn't have a fancy studio or sony studios attached to the game doesn't make it a bad game.

@BookhouseBoy True if they did they would also know that these remasters also serve to bring new developer's and new people just joining the studio up to speed.

@RubyCarbuncle I'm 40 and I believe it's less about remakes and remasters because outside of some rather pointless ones like Until Dawn and maybe this (although it's not like you need to buy the whole thing again) I've really enjoyed them. I personally believe it's more related to how big gaming became. When I was a kid and through the ps1 and Saturn up to the DC and MAYBE the 360 there was so much genre variety. The bigger the industry the more it starts to cater to the majority and of course the younger generation because that's where the cash is. Is old fossils wanting car combat games or side scrollers etc are old news. Big old photo realistic story driven games seem to sell and that's what we keep getting. Same with open world, it was fun at first but now it's tired and only a handful can captivate.

I find most of my gaming time is actually on Indie titles, remasters of old games and classic collections. In terms of cash grabs we've had those for decades though.

£10 for this is a bargain. This is no "cash grab" in any sense. If it was the same price as most pointless remasters then "cash grab" would be apt..this is how remasters should be priced.

I would 100% pay the $10 for it if they could add my bird from Forbidden West.. I don’t want to go back to just riding on the ground.. what’s the point in bringing the new cloud system in if we can’t enjoy beauty of flying through them.. seems like a tease 😔

Can’t wait for Horizon 3 tho 🤘🏻

It depends, if it has a brand new set of trophies to earn.. Otherwise: Nope

I'd still rather not. Unfortunately I'm sure it will do well and then we'll get more pointless ps4 remasters...... Except for bloodborne because that won't happen

Also means even more horizon which still feels like a weird series for Sony to lean on and personally I think the games are fine but nothing amazing

@Stickleman i mean they are using nixxes which is a studio they invested in for remasters , they dont' do anything besides that. so its not like its taking away from other games. also it doesn't surprise me that sony is full investing in horizon when horizon zero dawn is actually its highest selling game of all time.

My feelings about this haven't changed. I'm still a huge Horizon fan that won't be paying for the Remastered version anytime soon. I've already played Zero Dawn twice and it's still a really good version of the game. Yes, a decent amount of work went into this, but not everybody has changed their opinion.

I quit the original halfway through for some odd reason I can't remember, even though I completed the sequel. Maybe I'll give the fresh coat of paint a try.

It’s so wild to see certain games get sh*t on so much. I immediately took to Horizon and have loved and bought just about everything related to the franchise since. I’m biased obviously but there are plenty of games that are patently not for me. And that’s fine. Many of them are regularly getting their flowers which they clearly deserve. I’m not spending my time on this planet to go and put them down like that’s an important thing to do. Gamers are a weird bunch. I’m one too. I’m weird in plenty of ways. They just usually aren’t ways that seem so toxic to outsiders.

I bought HZD day one, as did I HFW. Bought their respective DLCs. And also bought a digital complete edition of HZD at some point in there just because I was lazy with the disc. And I’ll be buying this upgrade too. I guess the haters are gonna have to seethe on that for some reason.

I always get a kick out of comments on the horizon series. Its amazing how people who hate a series love to spend time on its comments board saying how bad it is. If theres an article on a game site about a game series i dont care for, i skip past that article. Why read about something i would have zero interest in or go to the comments just to say stuff not really related to the article. Far as the article, my understanding of one of the reasons for the remasters is to give new people something to work on to get better for other projects. Makes sense to me, they have new games being made so it isnt like new games arent being worked on. Will i get the upgrade, im not sure. Ive already beaten both games and their dlcs and spent hundreds of hours in each one. So i dont see myself going back since i have other unfinished games to play. But one never knows. Its my favorite series so there is always a chance.

I’m waiting on god of war Ragnarok remaster

My disc drive broke. So now in order to play this game that I own, I need to pay $49.99. Pretty cool, Sony.

I played it back in 2020 but i might get the upgrade because I loved it so much. Question, is the expansion upgraded too?

Par for the course, ps5 boosts ps4 games, ps6 boosts ps5 games ps7 boosts ps6 games. Price is right.

As always people can’t see the wood for the trees.

Sony have already explained they want to take games beyond a machine to tv/movies. Oh and this game had a cancelled tv show!

Who would have thought that just like Tlou they would want new people who are brought into the world to play a best version.

If you have played it or don’t like it or don’t want to play it. Just you know ignore it? Like you do for a billion other games you don’t whine about.

Sony get nothing from you and those that want to upgrade and replay can enjoy it.

Reads like an ad. How much did Sony pay you?

@Gewertzx Yeah so about the two Horizon games selling in excess of 30 million units. If the gameplay is so generic, can you point me to other games that allow me to hunt robot dinosaurs and shoot off particular parts to use as upgrade materials?

I wish G games would rework their Killzone games! I’d pay full price for an individual release for all of the Killzones minus shadow fall. As that game was the start of the change in direction for G games for me. Come on Sony!

Just purchased - I still need to complete Forbidden West. to be honest I have a few on the go, ZD:Remastered isn't top priority but will be done and worth the £10. Excellent game.

Disapointing to see so many people stil try to justify the cash grab. And people wonder why the industry is on its knees, stop supporting this kind of thing, be better.

I have a question about this remaster.

I got HZD way back shortly after launch, never completed it. I think I got inside the vault thing place in motherland, anyway, I digress. I do not own the Frozen Wilds expansion, but as I own the original would I get the FW expansion if I paid for the £10 upgrade to the remastered?

@Jswift56 The game is less than average. Story 5 OF 10
Gameplay 4 of 10 extremely repetitive with 0 ideas.
Graphics 10 of 10
Main character 2 OF 10 especially after the lesbian twist.
Music 7 of 10
NPC 0 of 10
That's my opinion and I do think they should focus on new IP or to bring back Killzone

I can't wait for release day! I'm excited about this!

The industry is on its knees because game development is prohibitively expensive. If Sony can make a quick buck here bringing this game to a new audience, I’m all for it. Nobody’s forcing you to buy it.

I've already pre-ordered the game considering it's only £10. You can definitely tell it's been updated too, looking forwards to platinuming the game again. It also has PS5 Pro enhancements so will be playing on the PS5 Pro.

@Gewertzx I noticed hatred in your comment. Nothing is perfect mate 😊

Unconstructive PS or other commenters reporting really? Some one else can call it a turd but I get the censoring. What is it because I put PS in the comment. Well don't take it as an attack.

Commenters/media can think whatever they want/get whatever they want out of the products/services it's perfectly fine to do so. If you don't like analysis of all sides that's on you. Don't put emotion into what I type as a look at different sides of things whether true or not I look at what is said/may have happened. Can no one be neutral and say the rumour, facts or opinions. How unconstructive is that? Very.

People are allowed to enjoy this the mo-cap and other changes. I'm not saying they can't they can spend their money on whatever they want. They weigh up what they want to do, not me.

They clearly say they enjoy the PS4 copy they own, people can buy it for cheap, Sony changed the digital version. That's valid feedback in response to the headlight/pole is it not? You don't like what I said so you censor me. How is it not feedback/responding and on topic towards the article? Tell me how it's not?

Just because I analyse it doesn't mean I'm wrong.

I'm sorry, is talking about small games funding, the mo cap/other features the Horizon remaster offers which is in the ARTICLE uncostructive, how audiences think of is this a value for money aka in the pole of feedback, how casuals will buy this versus the hardcore in this pole that casuals don't vote on, those in the pole versus the headline is a response of difference of opinion they are allowed to have or feedback to what the article offers. DO YOU READ.

I literally put how the hardcore see the product, if people can't read because it's too long and they don't want to and see particular words without the full context or other factors. I'm analysing not attacking. If people can't tell the difference they need to read more.

You can't report for unconstructive feedback. I didn't even swear or say anything off topic, the company does something, we have a pole here, how is it off topic and unconstructive, I just said a difference of over analysing. Some people don't read and don't like it.

I'm not allowed to say I think people are stupid, WIndows 11 is dumbed down for people, that's not a bad thing, I don't care for it but it's decision by the company to do so, I don't even mean it, some people put too much emotion into things seriously.

Sigh loyalists, that's not an attack that's just people passionate about the brand or this remaster, your fine to do so, but you are loyal and that's totally fine. What is wrong with that.

Just because you don't like it, don't censor me analysing what the product offers, what audiences will buy it (which are they allowed to enjoy it). Don' censor what you don't like.

Actually read what I said instead of not liking what you hear.

@Hypoman

I would love R6 Vegas remasters/remakes, and I'm still angry Patriots was cancelled and the series turned to Siege and is likely now dead as I loved it.