Here's why Horizon Forbidden West's rocks look so dang real, straight from one of the devs

In case you haven't noticed, Horizon Forbidden West has very lovely rocks, and now the franchise's creator has an insightful answer about why that is.

A lot of stuff in Horizon Forbidden West is visually exceptional, from the verdant forests of post-apocalyptic Utah to the rocky coastline of California, but a viral tweet from this week puts a spotlight on the stunningly detailed rock formations in the game. "Horizon Forbidden West has some of the best textures ever created by man," writes @TrueGamer1111.

Indeed, if you didn't know better you could easily mistake the screenshots shared for actual pictures of real-life rocks. The tweet attracted enough attention that Guerrilla Games studio and art director Jan-Bart van Beek chimed in with a quick but technical breakdown of just what's going on here.

"HFW’s rocks use a very unique system of shading," van Beek explains. "Instead of a texture, it uses a complex shader network that takes the local ecotope, erosion factors, moss and lichen distribution, dustyness and many other factors into account to give every rock unique colors."

Listen, I'm not an animator or visual artist or anyone who remotely understands what an ecotope is, but I can tell you the same in-house engine that was used to build Horizon Forbidden West (and Death Stranding, notably) is being used to make several new PlayStation Studios games. That means you can expect plenty of drop-dead gorgeous upcoming PS5 games to grace your eyeballs.

Find out where Horizon Forbidden West ranked on our list of the best PS5 games available now.