Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered - Review

When PlayStation revealed that they were releasing Horizon Zero Dawn for PlayStation 5 and PC, I honestly was shocked, the game was already on PC and playable on PlayStation 5 via backwards compatibility. The Remastering of the game also confused me as the game was not even 10 years old, heck it’s not even 8 years of age, but both are true and having played the game again, I have to ask why.

This is not going to be a normal review, as I already reviewed the game in March 2017, but rather I am going to focus on what is new here, as far as I can tell and what is good and bad. Going into the game I knew that things had to wow me, like the original did when it first released, but this was not a wow for the unknown as that ship as long sailed. Rather this had to wow me because we have seen and enjoyed the sequel in Forbidden West, so we know how good the Horizon series can look on PlayStation 5. So did I get that wow moment, honestly yes, a few times and that comes down to the art direction and the overall bump in polish to the game. Before I could get into the game though, I did have to watch the opening cutscene again where Aloy is presented to the rising sun, it is a touching moment and one that sets a bond between her and Rost. Thankfully the game let me import my PlayStation 4 save file, which meant I could jump past all the tutorial aspects and get right into the game. I imported a few saves, so I could jump around the place and discover different stages of the game as I replayed the game in early 2023, so the story was very fresh in my mind.

Something I know that the developers were very keen to take advantage of with the PlayStation 5 was the increase in detail of the foliage, which is a crucial aspect to the series. Jumping into the game I could see the extra attention to various parts, the foliage was much denser and I will admit to taking time to quite literally stare at the leaves on the trees. The game also had a little more life to it, pun intended, as the extra amount helps make each location feel like it should. One addition that I didn’t notice for a while was that the grass, shrubs and other smaller plants now react to Aloy walking through it, it happens in the sequel, but I had forgotten it didn’t happen in the original, but it does now. At one point, I had just gotten away from a Thunderjaw and I needed to take a breath, so I had Aloy stand alongside a river bank and the extra brush that banked, well the bank and the water running through it all came together in a way that did take my breath away. Even walking on known paths was proving to be more of a challenge now, as the denser forests that boarder some paths means that you can easily miss bandits or machines lurking just out of sight.

When I first walked into Merdian, I spotted the folks that call it home going about their days and I had to think if the city was so populated before and it was not. There were countless little villages that now had enough people for the huts that were there and again Meridian was packed with folks. I heard conversations that felt right, as there were enough people involved to make it seem possible, even on the walk up to the city for the first time, it felt like it was a place that people have been living in for a long time. Now of course, out in the wilds there are not just dozens more people walking around you, the decisions for where to expand the presence of humans in the world, appears to have been done correctly and for that I give the team credit. One of the big call outs for the Remaster was that the team added in a lot more animations and conversation options, and given I can’t recall every single line of dialogue from the original release, I will have to take their word on that. I will say though that when I had conversations with Erend and others, they now looked right. That was a complaint I had about the original release, countless times people wouldn’t look at Aloy when they were having a conversation with her, but now they do and while it’s a change that most people won’t care about, I am very grateful of its inclusion here now. Beyond just looking at Aloy, the mouth movements line up with the audio a lot better, meaning it loses its sense of a bad dub job.

While the game looks a lot better, there are still a host of weird graphical issues that plague it and given they didn’t touch a lot of the gameplay, this just doesn’t work for me. This is not something small like someone not grabbing an item in a background shot, but rather textures not loading, significant pop in of objects and Aloy herself having issues. The latter of those three is still the same as it was from the original release, the hair of Aloy is such a part of her design that if you saw her without it, she wouldn’t be her. Quite often her hair bounces into place in cutscenes, like it is being dropped from up high and each time I see it, I can’t help but sigh. While that is not game breaking the other visual issues were, the common one I encountered were textures not loading in and again this is not one or two textures, but countless ones. The first time I spotted this I was exploring around Blazon Arch and much of the texture that make up walls did not load in until I was next to them, I could see through them. The last visual issue was related to the pop in, which was common in the original release as well and while it is reduced here, it is still present. This happens to trees, people and machines and most of the time it is related to the detail that is found in them, so you will see extra shadows or highlights popping in as you get closer.

What really let me down with this release though was the lack of gameplay enhancements, yes the game looks nicer now, but let’s be honest the game didn’t look ugly before. But none of the gameplay enhancements from Forbidden West came to this version of the game and it’s a real shame. Now I am not expecting them to include a glider or remove the narrow climbing paths, those are sadly too baked into the dna of the game, but being able to pick up sticks or plants without having to come to a complete stop would have been ideal. I do understand that as a remaster, a lot of the effort is going to be given to the visuals of the game, but honestly missing out on these gameplay enhancements is just a missed chance to make the game even better.

If you never owned Horizon Zero Dawn before, than this is the best version to play, as it honestly looks incredible and contains a fun adventure to boot, but if you have played the original release, or really any version of the game before, there really isn’t anything to bring you back for a second serve. The enhanced visuals are nice when they work properly, but as it stands its like having a white wall and then painting it eggshell white and asking people to spot what is different, some may notice but many will not. The lack of gameplay updates feels like a missed chance to align it closer to the sequel and while the gameplay is still fine, we know it can be better. If this is your first time with Horizon Zero Dawn, you are in for a real treat but if you have played the game before, the updates might not be enough to wow you once again.

The Score

8.0

Review code provided by PlayStation

The Pros

The updated foliage is the real star here, it takes a world that was good before, but now makes it grand

Characters now actually look at Aloy proper when she speaks to them, fixing an issue I had with the original release and the mouths match the words being spoke

The Cons

The game still has visual issues with textures that don’t load in, or the detail for many objects pops in

The lack of gameplay enhancements feels like a missed chance to make the game better