Horizon Forbidden West PC vs PS5: Enhanced Features, Performance Tests + Image Quality Boosts!

Pre-launch, Guerrilla Games and PC specialists Nixxes offered us a chance to take a look at Horizon Forbidden West. This game has much to prove in the wake of the difficulties surrounding the Horizon Zero Dawn launch - but early impressions suggest that this is yet another impressive Nixxes effort. Alex takes a look at features, PC enhancements vs PS5, image quality boosts via improved upscaling solutions and checks out performance on mid-range PCs. The recommended specs looked eminently reasonable - so how does the final game shape up?

00:00 Sponsored by MSI QD OLED
00:36 Introduction
01:57 User Interface + Options
04:08 Fast Loading With DirectStorage
04:59 Shader Pre-Compilation Implemented!
06:15 PC Upgrades vs PlayStation
10:44 GPU Performance: RTX 3070 and RTX 2070 Super
11:26 8GB GPU VRAM Testing
12:46 CPU Performance
14:19 Suggested Improvements + Summary

[TheMusicSoul]

Nixxes is the best porting studio in the industry. Glad they are also making the Ghost of Tsushima port.

[awsomeboy]

The geometry density. Holy sht. The fact that this open world game looks just as great as linear based or even corridor based games is insane. And despite being cross gen looks insane. Decima engine in its actual game delivery is more impressive than Unreal Engine 5

[wile]

Porting developers be like:
Aspyr: 🤡
Nixxes: 🗿

[sean]

Sony was very smart to buy Nixxes for PC ports. Whenever I see them as the developer I feel pretty confident it will be solid from a technical perspective.

[dampflokfreund]

Finally a good working DRS in combination with competent upscaling on PC. This is huge!

[TheMusicSoul]

DECIMA Engine is a beast. Top notch graphics and great performance. Sony should give it to more developers.

[canylux]

Nixxes delivered again, really good to see.

[weaponcomparisoninvideogam]

As expected from Nixxes !
The performance is GOOD

[Ghost-pbts]

Bloodborne's 10th anniversary is next year. Fingers crossed!

[JT]

Walking around aimlessly is one of the things I love to do in open world titles, and the 21:9 aspect ratio is perfect for "cinematic traversing."

[Xilent]

Great video. Bring an Engineer from Nixxes so that they can teach other Developers how to optimize games.

[KnightOfTheWind]

Still the prettiest, best graphically looking game I’ve ever seen
Edit: In my opinion. RDR2 and CP2077 are absolutely gorgeous as well. I just like Horizon’s visuals better

[xbadbeef]

If you played Zero Dawn and have not played Forbidden West y'all gonna love the flying. There are also a variety of quality of life options, such as auto-pickup, auto-sprint, at least on a PS5.

[CobraF]

I just started watching this video and had to pause it to put a comment here: I think Horizon Forbidden West might be the best graphics in any game ever made. The level of detail combined with superb animations (including facial animations) without sacrificing the artistic side, is simply astounding.

[kevincampbell]

I like that you guys still include older hardware in your testing like the 2070 super.

[niks]

I really love you using ryzen 3600 CPU for comparison too, that cpu was legendary.

[danielgebert]

Nixxes and Insomniac, in particular, are doing what so many teams cannot — consistent, high quality work at a staggeringly fast pace in the current landscape. And guerrilla bringing innovative technologies to realtime rendering. Glad to see another solid PC port here. I wish all the best to all the Sony family of developers and those affected by the unfortunate layoffs.

Great work Alex and DF team.

[yashlenmoodley]

It's surreal how horizon forbidden west is two years old and yet is easily much more visually impressive than final fantasy 7 rebirth! I am proud to say that I have put in 340 hours on the PS5 version of this because the combat system is fast, visceral and super fun! If Horizon 3 only comes out in 2027 it's fine because I know that Horizon 3 will even be more better looking than GTA 6!!!!😊

[evostu]

Sony buying nixxies has been a huge win for pc gamers, they really know there craft & to think we will also have ghost of Tsushima in a few months is amazing.

[my_name_les]

This kind of games really shines in ultrawide, especially ultrawide OLED!!!!