Introduction

Horizon Zero Dawn was first released in February 2017, exclusively for the PlayStation 4. The title is created by the dutch game studio Guerrilla Games and published by Sony. This is the second PlayStation exclusive that's coming to the PC Platform—Death Stranding was released just a few weeks ago. Horizon Zero Dawn is an open-world action role-playing game that's similar in concept to Tomb Raider or Assassin's Creed, with some elements from titles like Far Cry, Zelda, and The Witcher.

The plot evolves around Aloy, a female hunter in a post-apocalyptic world that's home to scattered tribes using primitive technology to fight machines that roam the Earth. As the story progresses, you make contact with other groups and explore the vast open landscapes.



In terms of graphics, Horizon Zero Dawn looks highly impressive, both the environments and character models are extremely detailed. Textures are sharp and crisp, too. Horizon Zero Dawn is built on the Decima Engine, which is used by several other console titles; for example, Death Stranding, but with slightly different requirements. On the PC, the engine runs on DirectX 12 exclusively, featuring realistic physics for objects and lighting. Unlike Death Stranding, HZD does not support NVIDIA DLSS, and RTX Raytracing is not included, either.

In this performance test review we put the game through our huge selection of graphics cards at three resolutions and also include a mini review at the end, so you'll know whether the game is worth paying full price for or you had better wait for a discount.

Screenshots

All screenshots were taken at the highest settings profile. The gallery can be navigated with the cursor keys.

Graphics Settings

Graphics related settings are split between two sections: "Display" and "Graphics".

• Field of view can be adjusted between 70 degrees (default) and 100 degrees. I found 90 degrees a better choice than the default.
• "Adaptive Performance FPS" lets you set an FPS target between 30 and 120 FPS, which the game will try to maintain by dynamically adjusting the resolution.
• The FPS limit can be disabled completely, or you may choose between 30 FPS and 120 FPS.
• Using "Render Scale", you can adjust the render resolution for the game; the HUD will always be rendered at native, so it'll stay crisp and sharp. Values range from 50% to 100%.
• HZD supports "windowed", "fullscreen", and "borderless".
• V-Sync can be turned off to remove any FPS cap
• With a supporting monitor, HDR can be enabled
• Please note that changing the resolution often doesn't have the desired effect unless you restart the game to apply the new setting. For example, when you switch from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440, the game will apply the new setting, but the monitor will still run at 1080p, with the 1440p rendered output getting downscaled to match the output—this will result in lower-quality rendering and can be fixed by restarting the game.

• Unlike other games, which offer the usual Ultra, High, Medium, and Low options, HZD gives you "Favor Performance", "Original", "Favor Quality", and "Ultimate Quality".
• Anti-aliasing options are "off", "camera based", "FXAA", "SMAA", and "TAA". MSAA or NVIDIA DLSS is not available.