Analysis | Horizon Forbidden West for PC is one of the best ports ever made by Sony

Two years after being released for PlayStation, Horizon Forbidden West finally appeared on the computer. I confess that I was worried about the quality of the game on the PC after the problems faced in Zero Dawn, whose port took months to complete, but Nixxes Software's work was meticulous and worthy of praise, with Sony having been right to leave the game in the hands of this studio.

Let's start with the graphic options, which are not few. Unlike most PC games, which do not show visual changes when such options are modified, Forbidden West presents all changes immediately, something that should always be followed, but unfortunately it is not.

In addition, we also have upscaling options, including NVIDIA DLSS, AMD FSR and Intel XeSS, allowing for improved performance regardless of which manufacturer your graphics card is from. In the case of RTX 40 series cards, there is still the possibility of using Frame Generation, guaranteeing even more performance.

The port also makes use of DirectStorage technology, allowing loading on the SSD to be even faster, on par with what is provided on the PlayStation 5, as long as you have an NVMe Gen 3 or Gen 4 SSD.

However, it should be noted that there was also an excellent optimization work, as I was able to play without problems in 4K resolution with the graphics at maximum quality and using DLSS in Performance mode, always maintaining 60 fps or more on a GeForce RTX 4070 and without the need to activate Frame Generation. Because of this, I believe that users with cards like the RTX 3070 or RTX 4060 will have no problem playing at 1440p/60 fps.

In fact, it is always ideal to try to play without Frame Gen, as sometimes it tends to present some artifacts and ghosts on the screen. This is noticeable in Forbidden West and may be something that bothers some players. However, if you need this to get 60 fps, go ahead and enable it. This is not a situation where the resource arrived in a broken form, as for example in Immortals of Aveum, where it was impractical to make use of it when the game was launched.

It is also worth highlighting the good implementation of the shader loader, something very important and which generally does not receive due attention on the computer. This prevents choking during gameplay, something that breaks the rhythm of the game and disrupts the experience.

Another aspect that positively caught my attention in Forbidden West for PC was the impeccable use of HDR, which is one of the best I've seen to date in a computer game, making the colors of the scenes and characters stand out even more on the screen. OLED TV. It is important to note that at launch the functionality had problems on the PC, but it was recently fixed and is now very good.

Conclusion

Horizon Forbidden West for PC shows what we hope to see in a game on an eventual PlayStation 5 Pro, if the console actually exists and is launched. Not only is it a fantastic and well-optimized port, it managed to make already stunning visuals even more eye-catching. An exquisite work by Nixxes Software, showing once again why it is one of the best studios in porting games from consoles to computers.

Pros

• Graphics got even better on PC
• Satisfactory performance
• Various visual customization and upscaling options
• Well implemented shader loader

Cons

• Frame Generation features some minor artifacts and ghosting on screen

Rating 8.5/10.0

A copy of the game for PC (Steam) was provided by Sony for the preparation of this review

To learn more about Horizon Forbidden West, visit our reviews of the game and the Burning Shores expansion in its PlayStation versions.