PSblog: How Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores will harness the power of PS5

[Unchained]

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/0...burning-shores-will-harness-the-power-of-ps5/

Next month, Aloy will face new threats in a danger-filled land as she embarks on a new adventure. Horizon Forbidden West’s Burning Shore expansion leverages the power of PS5 to make this journey possible. We reached out to Guerrilla to understand how, and to find out more about the enticing combat and world design details we should expect on April 19. Game Director Mathijs de Jonge offers his development insights.

PlayStation Blog: What were your first impressions when first learning about the power and capabilities of the PS5, from a developer perspective?

Mathijs de Jonge: Horizon Forbidden West is a very visual game, so the promise of more CPU power and memory meant we were going to be able to add even more quality to the image; and gameplay-wise I was most looking forward to being able to play at 60fps. This was high on my wishlist as it works so well with our combat gameplay as you’re fighting the machines.

When I first heard about the superfast SSD, it was hard to believe that it was so capable – but it seems like loading times truly are a thing of the past. This works brilliantly for a game like Horizon Forbidden West, where long loading screens can be a real immersion breaker. From a development point of view, fast loading also helped me with reviewing the game because I could jump straight into any section without having to wait.

How have you taken advantage of PS5’s power to create Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores?

One of our key priorities with Horizon games is to add a ton of detail and richness to our environments. On Horizon Forbidden West, everything we added or increased was something we’d need to have a plan around how to optimize for PS4 as well. On Burning Shores, since we can just focus on PS5, we’ve been able to charge forward and we’re really excited about what we’ve been able to pull off in creating this stunning post-post-apocalyptic version of Los Angeles.

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. One of the settlements is situated in and around those detailed ruins, and we were able to squeeze a lot of activity in there.

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.

Horizon Forbidden West delivers fantastic visual effects, animations and immersive audio during combat encounters, especially when battling some of the larger machines. How have you taken advantage of PS5 to deliver these rich visual performances and what can we expect from Burning Shores?

Using the PS5’s processing power we can run certain simulations at higher speed creating more lifelike results and a better gameplay experience. On PS5, the Horizon Forbidden West base game runs at a higher resolution and at a higher framerate than on PS4, and assets are more detailed which makes the overall quality much better. There is also a special lighting setup for Aloy that we normally only display during cinematics, but is active on the PS5 at all times. On PS5 we can draw at higher detail much further into the distance, displaying the stunning vistas our players encounters all across the map. We also support 40Hz Mode and Variable Refresh Rate on capable TVs for even more fluid gameplay.

 

[CloudStrife]

 

[TwistedSyn]

Sounds good. Would like to see a new trailer with how they are taking advantage of it. We are almost 1 month away.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

 

[stebin alex]

Would like to see a Trailer and the price info

 

[One eyed jacks]

https://blog.playstation.com/2023/0...burning-shores-will-harness-the-power-of-ps5/

Music to my ears

 

[anonpuffs]

Ctrl+f "enemy AI"

Sadge

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Considering this game is still the graphical benchmark, even the base PS4 version in ways, I am looking forward to seeing how this looks on PS5.

Sometime late June is looking like a good time to finally pick a system up. I should have time to dig into enough of what I want & have to make buying one then worth it.

 

[anonpuffs]

Considering this game is still the graphical benchmark, even the base PS4 version in ways, I am looking forward to seeing how this looks on PS5.

Sometime late June is looking like a good time to finally pick a system up. I should have time to dig into enough of what I want & have to make buying one then worth it.

Been worth it since day 1 brother. Not suffering through load times was reason enough.

 

[Entropi]

I loved HFW so this is getting a lot of my playtime upon release.

 

[Yurinka]

I think this blog post doesn't make sense without a new trailer.

 

[ethomaz]

It will be interesting to see the improvements over HFW.

If the difference is drastic then it will kill a lot of PC and Xbox gamers theories that development is made top-down.
When in fact development is hold by old and weak hardware.

That will be the perfect example because they did the top-down strategy with the original game and now will do the exclusive strategy with the expansion.

I just want to see made up lies burning

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Been worth it since day 1 brother. Not suffering through load times was reason enough.

I'm still going back-and-forth between a Physical model or the rumored Revision D with a detachable disc drive. Though since I have to buy physical anyway, it doesn't really make a difference which one so regular Physical should be just fine.

I think this blog post doesn't make sense without a new trailer.

They probably made it a blog post only because of no trailer. The expansion comes next month though, really not that long to wait.

 

[Yurinka]

They probably made it a blog post only because of no trailer. The expansion comes next month though, really not that long to wait.

I know, but a month before its release we only saw a teaser. It would made more sense to have shown a gameplay trailer in this post explaining the new stuff it adds compared to the base game.

 

[One eyed jacks]

I think this blog post doesn't make sense without a new trailer.

Can’t drop a trailer without building up the anticipation first..

 

[Yurinka]

Can’t drop a trailer without building up the anticipation first..

It's only a DLC, that also has been already announced. No need to create anticipation to simply drop a trailer as companies constantly do for any game or dlc.

 

[One eyed jacks]

It's only a DLC, that also has been already announced. No need to create anticipation to simply drop a trailer as companies constantly do for any game or dlc.

Saying “it’s only dlc” is already showing you have missed the point. Besides not everyone has bought the game, it’s not all about you. New people who might have missed the game or were waiting to buy a PS5.. this puts the game back on their radar.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

The iki island big gameplay trailer came out july 21st, one month before the DLC dropped.

Horizon will probably be next week