Horizon Zero Dawn doesn't need a remaster

Over the weekend, news broke of a reported Horizon Zero Dawn remaster, as well as a multiplayer take on the franchise. That news has since been corroborated by a number of sources, and according to Gematsu is included within a Sony leak featuring multiple announced and unannounced projects.

Lending further credence to those reports is the Horizon Zero Dawn TV show. Sony's high-profile multimedia partnerships have yielded more than one re-release already; Tom Holland's Uncharted movie coincided closely with Legacy of Thieves, while The Last of Us Part 1 arrived close to major drops for its upcoming HBO series. With Aloy heading to the small screen and Guerilla working on at least one other Horizon title in Call of the Mountain, it seems very possible that Sony is returning to a successful remaster playbook.

This time around, though, there's comparatively little value in that remaster. Eyebrows were raised over whether or not we really needed The Last of Us Part 1, especially given the presence of The Last of Us Remastered. But Naughty Dog did a good job of explaining the extra work – especially around motion capture – that went into Joel and Ellie's move to PS5. Part 1 was described as the "definitive" version of The Last of Us, an opportunity to bring the 2013 game in line with its 2020 sequel in terms of the quality of its performances and visuals. Significantly younger, Uncharted 4 needed less help, but made good use of the opportunity to bundle the Drakes' most recent adventures together. Both games are also using the remaster treatment to make the move to PC, much like Marvel's Spider-Man. 

But Horizon Zero Dawn has none of that. Arguably the flagship for Sony's recent push to PC, it's been available on Steam for more than two years. Its Complete Edition, which came with its Frozen Wilds DLC, has been out for nearly five years. The game itself holds up visually far more successfully than something like The Last of Us. I played it during the pandemic, on a base PS4, and while it doesn't look quite as bright and shiny as Horizon Forbidden West does on the PS5, Zero Dawn was close to the peak of what Sony's last-gen console could offer. Guerilla's world is beautiful and diverse; its enemies intricate, varied, intelligent; performances are heartfelt and narrative tantalisingly well-told. Beyond a little technical coat of paint and some reduced loading times, I can't really see how a remaster would offer a meaningful improvement on the original at this point in the new console cycle.

Were this a new-gen upgrade of the kind we saw a suite of around the launch of the PS5, I wouldn't bat an eyelid. Where developers charged for those, $10 felt like a fair price for the improvements you'd see between generations. A full-fledged remaster, however, will set you back $40 for Spider-Man, $50 for Uncharted or God of War PC, or $70 for The Last of Us. Given the amount of extra work that went into the latter, a Horizon Zero Dawn remaster likely won't reach the top of that price scale, but it'll still be a significant extra investment.

For some, that'll be fine. If you're coming to Horizon for the first time, this'll be an enhanced version of the game, likely to cost less than the original did at launch. For Aloy's biggest fans, it's an opportunity to jump back in. But remastering a four-year-old game that still looks and plays great on both current and last-gen consoles is an odd move, especially if the reaction to the news on social media is anything to go by. 

Sony's current approach to extending the life of its (admittedly impressive) PS4 catalogue is drawing an increasingly cynical response, especially while certain titles and franchises languish, from Sly Cooper to Bloodborne, despite their fans clamouring for attention. Assuming this Horizon Zero Dawn remaster turns out to be real, Sony may have to think very carefully about what it wants to bring back next. 

Looking for something brand new? Here's our list of upcoming PS5 games.