As you know, Burning Shores is the name of the upcoming expansion of Horizon Forbidden West from Guerilla Games, and ahead of the premiere, which takes place in just over a month, the adventure’s game director Mathijs de Jonge has talked about the advantages of no longer being held back by the previous console generation’s hardware. With Burning Shores, the old faithful Playstation 4 is left to history and all focus is placed on optimizing the expansion to Playstation 5.
It was in an interview for Playstation Blog that de Jonge talked about how Guerilla, now with their hands free, was able to create a “stunning post-post-apocalyptic version of Los Angeles.” When asked how they handled the Playstation 4 during the development of Horizon Forbidden West, which was released for both the Playstation 5 and its predecessor, he had this to say; “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,” whereupon he added that “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.”
He then continued with “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.”
Later in the interview, he also takes the opportunity to praise the power of the new generation of Playstation consoles, which unsurprisingly make the PS5 versions of Horizon Forbidden West a much better 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 encounter all across the map. We also support 40Hz Mode and Variable Refresh Rate on capable TVs for even more fluid gameplay.”
We at the editorial office are excited for Aloy’s return, which takes place on April 19th, and also appreciate that studios like Guerilla are finally starting to let our old beloved Playstation 4 go into a well-deserved retirement.
Are you looking forward to Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores?
