Next month, Alo will have to face new threats in a dangerous country to start a new adventure. Horizon Forbidden West's Burning Shore expansion harnesses the power of the PS5 to make this journey possible. We spoke with Guerrilla to find out how, and learn more about the exciting world design and combat details we're expecting on April 19th. Game director Matthias de Jong gives insight into its development.
Playstation blog. What were your first impressions of the PS5's power and capabilities from a developer perspective?
Mathias de Jonge. Horizon Forbidden West is a very visual game, so the promise of more CPU and memory would allow us to increase image quality; and in terms of gameplay, I really wanted to be able to play at 60fps. This is very high on my wish list when fighting cars in our fighting game.
When I first heard about the ultra-fast solid state drive, it was hard to believe that it was so capable, but boot times seem to be a thing of the past. This works great for a game like Horizon Forbidden West, where long loading screens can break immersion. From a development perspective, the quick loading helped me get familiar with the game as I could jump straight to any section without waiting.
How did you use the capabilities of the PS5 to create Horizon Forbidden West? The banks are burning.
One of our top priorities at Horizon Games is to add a lot of detail and richness to our environments. Everything we added or added to Horizon Forbidden West had to have an optimization plan for PS4 as well. Now that we can focus on Burning Shores on PS5, we've been able to move on and are excited about what we've accomplished in creating this incredible post-apocalyptic version of Los Angeles.
The cityscapes of Los Angeles and its surroundings are very detailed and require a lot of processing power and fast rendering technology to work well. especially if the player is hovering above the ground and sees several at once. One of the settlements is in and around these ruins where we were able to host many activities.
Another feature is a certain fight scene that requires a lot of memory and processing power. As we realize this grand vision, technically and creatively, we certainly appreciate the many advantages of the PS5 hardware.
Horizon Forbidden West offers stunning visuals, animations and immersive sound during battles, especially when fighting some of the larger machines. How did you use the PS5 to create such rich visuals and what can we expect from Burning Shores?
By using the processing power of the PS5, we can run some simulations at higher speeds, creating more realistic results and a better gaming experience. greatly improves the overall quality. There's also a special lighting setup for Aloy that we usually only see in theaters, but it's still active on PS5. On PS5, we're able to capture even more detail, showcasing the incredible scenery our players encounter on the map. We also support 40Hz mode and variable refresh rate for more games on your TV.
What's your favorite PS5 game you've released so far? And from a developer perspective, how do you think you can get the most out of the hardware?
I spent many hours in Elden Ring on my PS5 and was very impressed with what it had to offer, but I think God of War Ragnarök surpassed me in character design and brilliant global visuals.
Horizon Forbidden West is available now on PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4 and is part of the PlayStation Plus catalog of games . The Burning Shores expansion will be available on April 19.