Horizon: Zero Dawn gets the graphical remaster a modern classic deserves

At their best, "remastered" video games keep terrific older titles viable on new generations of hardware and for new generations of fans. At their worst, they can feel like a cash-in.

So it was with some trepidation that I recently fired up the "remastered" Horizon: Zero Dawn, a game which won me over years ago with its PS4 version due to the simple fact that it was ONE OF THE BEST VIDEO GAMES OF ALL TIME and featured ONE OF THE BEST PROTAGONISTS OF ALL TIME in one of the BEST STORIES OF ALL TIME. (Yes, I like superlatives, which are some of the BEST WORDS OF ALL TIME. But the game world really was terrific.) Even my kids were won over, playing through the game and its sequel multiple times.

The game tells the story of a future Earth long after catastrophe—in the form of an autonomous robotic swarm—has ruined the planet. But it's not mere dystopia, though one does come across many wrecked and overgrown spaces from that earlier age. Horizon instead focuses on how humans, having lost most of their past knowledge, rebuilt a world in tribal fashion, a world populated by animal-inspired machines. The game's story operates ambitiously in two timelines and features massive killer robots, cults, and mad Sun Kings, all set against the gorgeous background of the American West.

If the original Horizon had a flaw, it was long load times. As one redditor succinctly put it, "These load times are butt, huh?" Indeed they were. Extremely butt, in fact.

The payoff was a gorgeous open world with such distinctive art direction that the developer put out a hardcover book showcasing the design work that went into the game. (Yes, I bought it, because it was about ONE OF THE BEST GAMES OF ALL—well, you get it.)

But that amazing graphic design, as good as it looked when it appeared on the PS4, was a tiny bit dated as the years passed, especially when its just-as-gorgeous sequel came out on the PS5. The story and gameplay in the first title were still amazing, but it was disappointing not to be able to play both parts of ONE OF THE BEST GAMES..., etc, in identical visual glory.

So when Sony put out the recent "remaster" of Zero Dawn, I was cautiously optimistic. Any sort of non-half-assed PS5 reworking ought to reduce load times, right?

Machines make it hard to enjoy the view.

Machines make it hard to enjoy the view.

So many more people in the towns. It's starting to feel a bit crowded!

So many more people in the towns. It's starting to feel a bit crowded!

Everything about the game looks good.

Everything about the game looks good.

So many more people in the towns. It's starting to feel a bit crowded!

Everything about the game looks good.

I meant to dip into the world of Zero Dawn only for a few hours, but I ended up playing through the whole game and its expansion, The Frozen Wilds, over the last few weeks. The arrow-based gameplay, complex story, and voice acting were still terrific, and the remastered elements were far more than a simple cash-in. Even little things, like the way the adaptive triggers on the PS5 controllers mimic the tension of a bowstring, felt perfect.

I didn't expect to get sucked back into the game's world for so many hours, but I had a great time doing it and wanted to spread the good word for those who might be looking for an engaging single-player experience over the holidays.

Big changes

When it comes to major changes, the remaster has three.

First, the game loads fast. It feels like a ground-up PS5 title. Death—and its attendant reloads—no longer makes me want to throw my controller across the room during difficult battles. It's great.

Second, the game looks unbelievable. This is not a case of just upping the resolution to 4K and calling it a day. Sony claims that the game features "over 10 hours of re-recorded conversation, mocap and countless graphical improvements that bring the game to the same visual fidelity as its critically acclaimed sequel." Also, the game's characters have "been upgraded, bringing them in line with current generation advances in character models and rendering."

This is not just marketing fluff. The faces look incredible, even in close-up cinematic interludes, but what really caught my eye was the lighting. From the moment a young Aloy spelunks into a cave and finds an electronic gadget attached to a skeleton lying peacefully in a sunbeam, the revamped lighting engine makes its presence clear. No, it's not "realistic"—everything looks like a postcard shot. But I found myself pausing the game just to look at the sunlight scattered by a snowstorm or dawn breaking over a mountain range. The lighting interacts with a volumetric set of effects that bring fog and dust devils to life like few other games I've seen. When Aloy tramps through a winter squall, leaving footsteps in the mountain snow as she walks, the effect is magical. (Until a Glinthawk swoops in, screaming, and attacks.)