Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered Assessed by Expert. In His View, It's More of a Remake Than a Remaster
Digital Foundry conducted a technical analysis of Horizon: Zero Dawn Remastered. The changes made quite an impression on the expert, who even compared it to the remake of Demon's Souls.
Sony recently discussed a fair number of changes that have been made to Horizon: Zero Dawn Remastered. A recently published article showed that the game had been thoroughly refreshed, which we could partially see in the comparison revealed a month ago. Now we’ve got some additional insight into what’s new thanks to technical analysis from the Digital Foundry team.
Remaster like a remake
The final impressions of the video's creator, John Linneman, were very positive, even though he initially approached the game skeptically. In his opinion, the changes introduced by Nixxes Software are so extensive that the product felt more like a remake than just a remaster.
"The changes are significant enough that I'm not sure if the word remaster is appropriate in this case. Horizon Remastered reminds me more of Bluepoint's work on Shadow of the Colossus and Demon's Souls. It may not be that ambitious, but the game is more in this area than not. You can feel that the team has accurately assessed the game and practically reworked everything to make it look appropriately modern."
Visual improvements are evident in virtually every aspect of the game. This includes a more detailed terrain, denser vegetation (although some players have pointed out that its color palette is too green), better water reflections, and newly made lighting.
A significant difference can also be seen in character models. Although they retained the same number of polygons, they gained much more realistic skin, hair and clothes. The creators also took care to improve the poor dialogues from the original and now the characters have much more natural animations and facial expressions. They're not at the level of Forbidden West, but the difference is clear.
It's also worth mentioning the performance. The new Zero Dawn will offer three modes: 30, 40, and 60 fps. Linneman pointed out, however, that the visual differences between them are so minor that he sees no point in giving up the extra frames. Moreover, the game is said to be excellently optimized and always maintains the chosen amount of fps.
Horizon Zero Dawn: Remastered will debut on October 31 on PC and PS5. It's worth noting that this is another game from Sony that will require a PSN account.
