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'Mind Boggling' Horizon Forbidden West Has the Best Console Image Quality Ever on PS5 Pro

Lightyears beyond base PS5

by · Push Square

Horizon Forbidden West, and its recently remastered predecessor Horizon Zero Dawn, is comfortably one of the best looking games you can play today. And it’s no surprise to see it already pushing the PS5 Pro to its limits, as developer Guerrilla Games have always been tech wizards.

Speaking about the upgrade in a recent Digital Foundry video, tech expert John Linneman couldn’t hold back his enthusiasm for the enhancements.

“I think they might have achieved arguably just about the best image quality I’ve seen in a console game,” he smiled. “It’s so good. When you consider the density of the visuals [and] how much detail is in them, the way it resolves it so clean and attractive that it’s honestly mind boggling. It looks really, really good. It feels like you’re playing a high-end PC game now.”

While an undeniably attractive game, Horizon Forbidden West did look a little rough at 60fps on the base PS5 at launch. The Dutch developer eventually released a patch to improve this, but there was still some shimmering and artefacting caused by the sheer density of detail on display.

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Many of those problems are a thing of the past on the PS5 Pro.

Linneman explained: “There’s so much granular detail in the distance: the grass, the rocks, everything. The game is very visually busy, right? This does it justice in a way that the original modes did not – especially the original and its updated Performance modes. It’s lightyears beyond that.”

Ironically, this game isn’t using Sony’s proprietary AI-based upscaler PSSR, and has instead opted for Guerrilla’s own in-house upscaling solution. Presumably this is designed to get the most out of the Decima Engine, and is really bearing fruit here. We’re fairly confident the team at Guerrilla Games will share its technology with its parent company.

Still, if you’ve been waiting to play Horizon Forbidden West, or jump into Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, it seems like it’s the series to play on the PS5 Pro. Prepare to have your face melted by the “mind boggling” visuals on display.

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About Sammy Barker

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.

Comments 34

I'm still getting a Steam Deck (and/or a Switch 2!)

Thats really impressive! I havent played this series yet. Hmm, really tempted to sell my PS5 and get a Pro

Wasn't the PS5 version of the main game a bit under spec because there was a PS4 version? I'm playing The Burning Shores dlc currently on my regular ass PS5 and I think it looks better than the main game. Probably because it was only developed for the PS5.

I'm not sure how we got to the ps5 performance mode looked a bit rough. I guess because I've been gaming since Nintendo i feel like most games just look amazing on current gen consoles

I'd love to try it. Unfortunately, they removed it from PS Plus and I'm still waiting for a disc drive for the Pro, lol.

@LogicStrikesAgain "Do it" - Emperor Palpatine, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

It's kind of ironic that the best IQ on Pro currently is one that doesn't use PSSR 😂

Haven't tried Horizon yet with it's f*** off download size but I've been playing Stellar Blade in the PSSR mode and it's near perfect 👌 it's funny how the drop from 80fps mode to 60fps is really noticeable now, just like 60-30 was. To be fair I'm fine with any stable frame rate. Higher is a nice treat though.

Neither of the Horizon games use PSSR or FSR. Guerilla invented their own rescale - reconstruction tech just for those games. Shame it couldn't be used for anything else unless, somehow, the tech can be transferred into the PSSR workflow.

HFW is already the best looking game I’ve ever played on the base PS5. Can’t imagine it looking any better (I’m playing it on a 4K OLED monitor and with HDR enabled).

@Nyne11Tyme It did. Genuinely hard to look at for the first few months until they had a substantial overhaul.

And I've been gaming longer than you.

Funny coincidence I'm replaying Forbidden West right now just doing the final story mission then I'm gonna play Burning Shores again love this game so much ^__^

@Hundred_Hand_Slap yes they don't want to tell you that part.

Which they even indicated when burning shores came out.

Of course the base game was made for the ps4 and ps5.

It is a little sleight of hand when they are comparing these titles.

There are alot of performance videos out now in which people are comparing ps5 and ps5 pro performance modes and they are identical.

It looks great on the base PS5 so it will be interesting to see the improvements.

The FPS boost on games like FF7R and FF16 are more of a draw to me though than fancy graphics.

A stable 60fps is all I ask for. Shame I have to spend more to get that because developers won’t fix their games on the base PS5 and I’m assuming new releases will be capped at 30 on the base moving forward. 😢

I literally don't care. The PS5 Pro is too much money for what it is and sets a terrible precedent in terms of gouging on price.

While an undeniably attractive game, Horizon Forbidden West did look a little rough at 60fps on the base PS5 at launch

We have VERY different ideas of “rough” then as I thought it looked spectacular. Still one of the high bars for graphics in a game, even more impressive as it’s open world and not narrow corridors.

looks great but shame the games no where near as good as zero dawn

This website is REALLY pushing the pro isn’t it?!

Any chance we will eventually return to news about games rather than making anyone who hasn’t shelled out their entire monthly mortgage on an upgraded console feel bad?

lol I swear I think Sony paid PUSHSQUARE to keep making articles trying to convince people to buy the Pro

Ever... Until the PS6 in a few years.

@Kienda That won't happen. This is only like getting a somewhat better GPU for you PC so now you can raise the settings. The games can be on high settings instead of medium. The PS5 will continue to get medium to high settings and the Pro will get high to very high, depending on framerate choice.

These games are still coming out on PC and will still be scalable to different hardware tiers. Most modern games still run on a 970, a card from 2014. And yeah, at 60fps depending on the graphics settings. And the Pro isn't that powerful. It can't run Elden Ring at 60fps, a game that came out on PS4, and that does actually run at 60fps on a $350 graphics card.

@danzoEX I know. It feels more like Push Pro than Push Square. It feels like every article should have a paid promotion tag, like certain YT videos.

Wow, the PS5 Pro truly is for kings! People with a PS5 Amateur have a lot to think about right now!

@MrPeanutbutterz i guess to each their own. When it released i didn't have any issues with visuals other than the Halo effect in one of the modes around Aloy

@Matroska LOL at the Push Pro comment.

@danzoEX How dare PushSquare a PS based site cover the release of a new PS console

Id love a PS5 Pro. Just can't justify the price tag with a wife and 2 kids to consider too

So push square, you like the ps5 pro? Only 650 reports to go to make it one report per pound asking price for the ps5 pro!

There could be a few less articles sure but have any of you whining about the number of articles considered that you could have avoided the website for the release week if it was going to bother you that much.

What did you expect?

Am I the only one who finds Push's hyperbolic extreme marketing of the Pro incredibly uncomfortable? Let alone that DF is really the main one with hyperbolic extreme marketing for pro, and then Push keeps regurgitating it, but adding even more hyperbole to it.

Whether for or against pro, I'm finding this very obvious marketing push on both parties to make me as uncomfortable around their objectivity as any Keighley presentation.

Sony just released a new console and people are mad it's being covered? Can you imagine when Switch 2 releases people on Nintendo life are like "Gosh I'm so sick of hearing about the new Switch, move on already 🙄"

Why are all the PlayStation 5 pro comparisons comparing it to performance mode at 60 frames instead of the native 4k

@Dampsponge its just because the biggest jump is how these performances modes on the pro at times have graphics settings and/or image quality that either exceeds or matches the original quality mode at 30fps.

Simply put its the best way to compare and give the wow factor between performance modes

@Dampsponge because that's the most relevant comparison. Pro is a better deal if you're a performance mode main.

Horizon FW and ZDR both look great to me on my LG C4 OLED in HDR. I would probably notice the difference if the two consoles were running on identical TVs side by side. But for now I am very satisfied with the graphics of my setup. And when I am sticking and moving in a big machine battle, don't really have time to count blades of grass anyway.

My limited edition sits unopened in a drawer to this day. Loved the first game, but just never got to it. But man, it sure sounds like that wait is about to pay off!

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