Here's how Aloy has been improved for Horizon Forbidden West

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Aloy will appear more real than ever before

Horizon Forbidden West Aloy
(Image credit: SIE)

A new dev blog for Horizon Forbidden West highlights the visual improvements Aloy will go through now that the series is heading to PS5.

Posting on the official PlayStation blog, Guerrilla’s community lead Bo de Vries gave an insight into how Aloy will evolve in the sequel to 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn. According to de Vries, the release of the PS5 gave the team at Guerrilla "even more means to aim for high quality and visual benchmarks." These new additions to the series will apparently add another layer of "detail and authenticity to the game." 

Perhaps most interestingly, de Vries talks about the visual upgrades Aloy will get in Horizon Forbidden West due to the new capabilities on offer thanks to the PS5. This includes smoother contouring, finer details such as peach fuzz and texture details, and more accurate materials expression. Not only this, but the team at Guerrilla has also been able to increase the number of skeletal joints in Aloy’s character model resulting in a more "immersive character performance."

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This isn’t to say that those playing Horizon Forbidden West on PS4 - when it does eventually release early next year - will have to go without these new improvements though. In fact, lead character artist at Guerrilla Bastien Ramisse was quoted in the post as saying that "just because the team has been pushing the boundaries on the PS5 version of Horizon Forbidden West, doesn’t mean that the PS4 version will be compromised."

"We actually developed and tested the game simultaneously on both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5," the post continues, "because it’s very important to us as a studio to ensure PlayStation 4 players get an equally immersive experience." So rest assured those of you planning to play Horizon Forbidden West on PS4, you’re still in for an unforgettable experience. 

Horizon Forbidden West is due to release on February 18, 2022, on PS4 and PS5. 

Already excited for Aloy’s next adventure? Take a look at our Horizon Forbidden West pre-order guide to make sure you’re getting the best price on the upcoming PlayStation title.  

Hope Bellingham
Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.