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Recently, Horizon Zero Dawn has been completely free at Sony’s Play At Home program on PS Store. The special thing was Complete Edition is offered to players. This means the players on PS4 and PS5 will have access to the full content, including DLC The Frozen Wilds.
However, it is worth mentioning that Horizon Zero Dawn has not had an official support version to take advantage of the PS5 hardware so far. This makes Horizon Zero Dawn not have an official PS5 updated version yet, although several big brands have released the graphical upgrades for the next-gen.
1. Horizon Zero Dawn on PC workable at 4K dimension and up to 120FPS
1.1 The attentional steps taken by Sony
Before mentioning the reason why we need to understand that Horizon Zero Dawn was developed on the original PS4 platform for the first time in 2017, then DLC The Frozen Wilds also on PS4 as well. Although PS4 Pro has now been sold with an operable configuration with Full HD 1080p and 60FPS, the publisher Guerrilla Games is still loyal to 4K and 30FPS graphics. The players still have to accept this if they want to join the journey of The Frozen Wilds. But the most important thing is that at the end of the game’s life cycle and preparation for Horizon Forbidden West, Horizon Zero Dawn publisher is released on the PC platform.
Game graphics are fully exploiting in terms of the powerful hardware of the VGA capable of processing more powerfully on PS4 Pro. It’s said that it’s like throwing cold water on most PS4 gamers when they are proud of the Horizon Zero Dawn game which is exclusive on PS4. The entire game can be freely performing at 4K resolution and even at the frame rate of 120FPS/s. Many players now opposed this injustice bitterly, some of them even smashed their PS4 because the producers released Horizon Zero Dawn on PC.
1.2 Horizon Zero Dawn has a complex processing system of graphics
Thanks to the powerful processing abilities of the hardware system on the PC, this makes Horizon Zero Dawn an impressive performance. It is vital to understand that all games, go through all procedures of design during the development process on the PC.
The stages of designing characters, environments, character movements, dubbing, programming, or DLC development… Which performed on PC with operating systems such as Windows, Linux, or Mac that are friendly to the operating system developments.
All game development processes take the job on Windows platform so that Game Designer can control the quality at each specific stage of development. Only at the beginning of testing on PS4, the game got ported to Sony’s system according to the SDK software. This process requires all scripts to translate to work on PS4 exclusive hardware.
Finally, the game will keep a Windows version, though it can never be released. And the fact is that on PC, the manufacturers will set no limit to the level of FPS that a game can operate.
The game will analyze and provide the best quality based on the components of the PC.
2. Why Horizon Zero Dawn will not get an upgrade on PS5?
2.1 Waste a lot of resources
Horizon Zero Dawn Game, particularly, at the time of release has really attractive graphics, even it’s compatible to the original VGA of the PC at that time, GTX1080. To make it, the Guerrilla Games development team had to use a special technique that caused the PS4’s hardware, not to render areas that didn’t appear in the Camera while playing.
This allows the hardware to focus on processing the objects in the frames. And as an end result of the game, its graphics become better. But this is also the reason why it makes customizing the Render system in the game more complicated. It’s also the key reason why developing an update to Horizon Zero Dawn on PS5 takes a lot of resources.
2.2 Draw new players’ attention is more important
When looking back at the release of Horizon Zero Dawn for PC, it is easy for all players to recognize. This is Sony’s step to use one of their original games to promote its exclusive PlayStation.
In fact, as soon as the PC version available, Horizon Zero Dawn was immediately cracked because there was no use of any secure DRM tool.
In addition, after a short time of its release on PC, Horizon Zero Dawn’s next version, Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel which introducing at the same time as the PlayStation 5. And of course, this post-story had no PC version.
Is this release a big promotion from Sony to PC gamers that “hey, we have great PlayStation exclusive games, you guys should buy a PlayStation 5?” Give up PC for a wider world that Sony offers and it will attract more players to this game for sure.
2.3 Horizon Forbidden West’s release date is coming
Developing a game takes a lot of time. That’s for sure, and it takes even longer with the game of Triple-A like Horizon Zero Dawn, which took at least seven years to do. In addition, in 2020, Sony released the first trailer for Horizon Forbidden West, and there will be more info about the game released in 2021 It shows that the Guerrilla Games team has been working hard to develop this post-game. Even before Horizon Zero Dawn ported on PC, the post-game was in progress. That is the most important reason why it’s impractical to release an upgraded version to its predecessor.
Moreover, the life cycle of PS5 has just begun and the number of games developed for the new system is small. This will make Sony and game producers prioritize newer experiences, rather than focus on resources to develop a game that will delight a lot of players.
Besides that, giving a free game will go follow Play At Home plan. That makes the earnings from Horizon Zero Dawn almost zero, which makes publishers have a more tendency to prioritize Horizon Forbidden West.
Conclusion
The release of Horizon Forbidden West is coming soon. Furthermore, it’s a financial burden on Horizon Zero Dawn producers because they can’t earn from upgrading the game and interrupting the release time of the sequel as well. Obviously, it is reasonable not to upgrade the game at the moment.
However, this does not mean the game won’t be upgraded in the future. Horizon Zero Dawn will not get the quality upgrade. There will still be a large number of new players who need to understand the game’s storyline. And it’s vital to update to bring gamers and developers’ performance.
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