Horizon: Forbidden West

[one-armed dwarf]

Oh yeah, we've definitely hit a plateau. This RT stuff will be cool but it will also be the smallest noticeable leap we've ever seen in a console gen I bet

[DisturbedSwan]

I do think you can already compare MM PS5 in a way, not directly but you can look at the PS5 footage in the recent showcase and PS4 Spidey 1 footage. It's a huge step up in quality, at no time watching that showcase did I think it looked in any way like a PS4 game.

[DisturbedSwan]

 

Quote

 

Nearly eleven months ago we showed you the very first glimpse of Horizon Forbidden Westduring the PlayStation 5 Showcase, and now we’re excited to show more! This Thursday, May 27 join us on a very special journey into new and uncharted lands.

 

Starting at 9AM Pacific Time / 5PM BST / 6PM CEST, please tune in at your leisure for a uniquely crafted countdown towards the main State of Play event, which starts at 2PM Pacific Time / 10PM BST / 11PM CEST.

 

During this State of Play, we will debut the Horizon Forbidden West gameplay reveal! In this 20-minute exclusive segment, you’ll be seeing about 14 minutes of brand new in-game action featuring our heroic protagonist Aloy, all captured directly on PlayStation 5. 
 

This reveal has been a true team effort and we’re very excited to show you what we have in store. Whether you’ve been with us and Aloy since Horizon Zero Dawn or are only just getting to know this incredible world, we want to share this huge milestone with you and cannot wait to see your favorite moments and reactions.

 

Please join us on Twitch or YouTube at 9AM PDT / 5PM BST / 6PM CEST for the special State of Play Pre-Show, and at 2PM PDT / 10PM BST / 11PM CEST for the Horizon Forbidden West gameplay reveal.

 

 

[Maryokutai]

I'd like to watch this just for the visuals but I still haven't gotten around to playing the first one and I presume this might spoil a lot. Hm...

 

Also, I would absolutely not be surprised at all if this slipped to 2022. Guerilla is usually pretty timely with their productions, but Covid and cross-gen can't not have had an impact on development.

[Maryokutai]

Ok, I don't quite know how to phrase this to avoid getting pitchforked by some people, but I think it's very obvious this is a cross-gen game. It looks extremely good, but it's not even remotely the leap from the first game I expected it to be. Of course this is youtube and it'll look better on your own TV, but the initial teaser seemed to promise a bit more.

 

Other than that it's still a really cool setting and all that and I ask myself for the nth time why I haven't played the first one yet.

[Whiskey_chaser]

I just watched this. I recently fired up the first one thanks to it being free on Days of Play and yeah - this is a big step up. The detail is astonishing.

I also have a really strong urge to throw a shit load of money at Zoids.

[Maryokutai]

Might just be the thing where you remember stuff being prettier than it actually is. I do plan and playing the first one sometime this year so I'll have the comparison at some point.

 

I did quite like the look of the underwater segment in FW, that was nice (and not too deep, phew).

[mfnick]

Looks great, but I agree, it doesn’t look like that much of a leap. Still be impressive if they can get it to run at 60fps looking that good though. The animations and the way they link together still look really weird and stilted too. 

[mmmark]

Looks like a higher res version of one, no major changes or owt and if you liked 1, you will this.

 

I’ll probably go back to one sometime. I found the movement cumbersome. 

[one-armed dwarf]

5 hours ago, Maryokutai said:

Ok, I don't quite know how to phrase this to avoid getting pitchforked by some people, but I think it's very obvious this is a cross-gen game. It looks extremely good, but it's not even remotely the leap from the first game I expected it to be. Of course this is youtube and it'll look better on your own TV, but the initial teaser seemed to promise a bit more.

 

Other than that it's still a really cool setting and all that and I ask myself for the nth time why I haven't played the first one yet.

I keep thinking of getting the first one on PC to test HDR stuff out but the footage I've seen of it they really seem to love god rays, which is an effect I'm tired of (and kinda undermines HDR, imo)

 

Anyway yea I don't think it looks that 'next gen' as such, just very vibrant and dense visually and leans very heavily on contrast but nothing there that screams 'only possible on PS5' (which it's cross gen so obviously yea). It's probably native 4k though which makes it stand out cause almost nothing on Ps4 was native 4k

 

The thing with extremely good ray tracing is IMO it can makes games like this look like pre-rendered FMV, but this doesn't look like that to me just yet.

 

edit just to be clear I don't think teh game looks shit or anything, it's extremely high fidelity but it's not got the stuff IMO which makes me really go 'oh wow next gen', which is the reaction I had with HL Alyx, Flight Sim and the initial hours of Cyberpunk

[DisturbedSwan]

Thought it looked phenomenal myself, I watched the 4K vid they put out after the SoP and it is very impressive to me.
 

I played the last one so long ago now that I barely remember how it looks compared to this though. I wasn’t quite as hot on the OG as some but thought it was very good.

The bit where she’s running away from the Mammoth thing, grapples over some ruined buildings then uses her parachute thing to glide back to the ground whilst the mammoth slams through the buildings was insane, same with the bit where she puts the upgrade token thing into her Spear during the fight against the Tribesman. The facial detail is astounding as well, there’s one part you can see the little hairs on Aloy’s face. 

 

I also think the underwater section was crazy, the amount of detail and colour was just pretty bonkers to me.

 

It maybe didn’t look as visually impressive as Demon’s Souls or Ratchet & Clank but I was still pretty blown away by it, really hope it makes it this year, would be a shoe in for GOTY at this point. 
 

It also made me realise how similar the combat is to TLOUP2 now with the bow etc. Obviously completely different apocalyptic worlds but yeah. 

[one-armed dwarf]

I will say I thought the combat looked really good too, not having any frame of reference to how the first one played. Specifically the BOTW style grappling up and hang gliding away and Ratchet style 'gimmick' weapons to glue the boss up.

 

I wont be able to play this though because it seems that PS5 hasn't been released yet, or something. Given that nowhere is selling them

[DisturbedSwan]

It’s on PS4 too @one-armed dwarf ? I know it won’t look as good, but it’s an option. Hopefully PS5s will be more widely available whenever this releases.

[DisturbedSwan]

 

[radiofloyd]

Holiday release “on track” but “not certain yet”:

 

https://www.gematsu.com/2021/06/horizon-forbidden-west-on-track-for-holiday-release-but-that-isnt-quite-certain-yet

[mmmark]

 

[Nag]

For fucksake... PS5 really was sold on a lie wasn't it.

[one-armed dwarf]

Why is a video game delay evidence of PS5 being sold on a lie lol

 

Blame covid

[Nag]

I'm starting to get a little bit sick of the whole blame covid thing to be fair... take a look back at the reveal and see just how many of their 2021 releases that aren't actually hitting.

 

They should've never given dates in the first place.

[one-armed dwarf]

My admittedly limited understanding of it is it's really hard to iterate in game development with WFH due to how big files are in games and how that impacts deploying new builds for QA to test. I mean not to get all blakey on it but Halo Infinite got delayed an entire year for looking underwhelming and the Series consoles launched without any notable exclusives. It's an industry wide problem with no fix until this stuff is something much more controllable

 

The other factor is where you need people interacting, eg actors. It's not like that stuff happens in isolation from making the game, it can be a massive blocking factor. Unless people want their 2021 games to come out on time but have text cards explaining what happens next a la Quantum Leap ending. 

 

The other 'people' factor is collaboration, not every job can seamlessly work remote and in isolation. Especially a highly creative discipline like gaming. It's not like web development, or updating an excel spreadsheet, or whatever all of our boring jobs are (except Bellow because he's a musician, making him the only cool one on here)