Horizon Zero Dawn - Release Day

The PC version of the open world RPG Horizon Zero Dawn will be released today:

Horizon Zero Dawn

EARTH IS OURS NO MORE

Experience Aloy's entire legendary quest to unravel the mysteries of a world ruled by deadly Machines.

An outcast from her tribe, the young hunter fights to uncover her past, discover her destiny... and stop a catastrophic threat to the future.

Unleash devastating, tactical attacks against unique Machines and rival tribes as you explore an open world teeming with wildlife and danger.

Horizon Zero Dawn is a multi-award-winning action role-playing game - and this Complete Edition for PC includes the huge expansion The Frozen Wilds, featuring new lands, skills, weapons and Machines.

INCLUDES:

• Horizon Zero Dawn
• The Frozen Wilds expansion
• Carja Storm Ranger Outfit and Carja Mighty Bow
• Carja Trader Pack
• Banuk Trailblazer Outfit and Banuk Culling Bow
• Banuk Traveller Pack
• Nora Keeper Pack
• Digital art book

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More information.

Great game, which I've finished on PS4 Pro. For all people getting it on PC, I really hope you have the same fun as I did

I’ll probably pick this up at a discount. I keep hearing good things about it but I’m still not sure about playing a game that’s predominantly ranged combat. I rarely finish shooters.

Unfortunately it crashes at startup for me - no error message - nothing.

Maybe my CPU is too old. But a messagebox "Your hardware is not supported" would be nice.

I'm always puzzled by these sloppy ports from major companies. You'd think it would be better for business to invest in doing it properly.

Played it on ps4. I wouldn't call this an rpg. Rather an open world action game.

DX12 + WIN10 needed.

HiddenX said:

Unfortunately it crashes at startup for me - no error message - nothing.

Maybe my CPU is too old. But a messagebox "Your hardware is not supported" would be nice.

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Have you checked the discussions? Did you check the system requirements before you bought it? If you CPU is slow, I doubt that would result in an outright crash.

It's a good game. Don't give up.

It's running fine for me on Ultra settings, but I'm still in the prologue so I'm not sure if it gets more demanding later on.

It's just "ok" so far. It definitely has the feel of a console game. It still shows quest markers even though I have them turned off in the settings. Not sure if that's a bug or if I need to hit another key to turn them off.

There also doesn't appear to be a config file, so no tweaking beyond what's available in the settings menu which is disappointing.

Zero interest in Zero Dawn

Seen images though and nice looking game. Wish was my kind of game as wouldn't mind a new game. But will wait patiently for Wrath of the Righteous.

For those who enjoy this style hope you have fun!

I really love their environment work. Apparently they designed their world lighting by recreating scenes from the Planet Earth documentaries.

JFarrell71 said:

Have you checked the discussions? Did you check the system requirements before you bought it? If you CPU is slow, I doubt that would result in an outright crash.

It's a good game. Don't give up.

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My CPU (Intel Xeon X3360) is not slow, but very old and doesn't support the AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions) instruction set.
Death Stranding and the newer Assassin's Creed games are the only games I know that need this. And I own more than 1800 PC games.

My Intel Xeon X3360 with my GTX 970 was pretty good so far for full-HD games.

PC Gamer checked out the port yesterday: https://www.pcgamer.com/horizon-zero-dawn-pc-performance-benchmarks/

Seems some folks are having bad problems like @HiddenX; but they don't know why yet.

HiddenX said:

My CPU (Intel Xeon X3360) is not slow, but very old and doesn't support the AVX (Advanced Vector Extensions) instruction set.

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I think missing an instruction set could be a pretty likely candidate.

HiddenX said:

doesn't support the AVX

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AVX is needed for HZD.
And yes, Death Stranding also needs it to run.

About AC games, I do remember Ubi patched some not to require AVX, but man, seriously, it's time to upgrade that CPU.

I've played the game for 7 hours now and… it froze my machine. Didn't crash to desktop, just froze everything.
After continuous 7 hours of play so that's not a biggie if you ask me…

An odd microstutter occurs here and there, nothing much and not often, but I'd still like to see them smoothed. Other than that… Can't complain.
Note that many people do report problems on their side with rigs 100 times stronger than mine. I guess they're trying to max everything on 4K and still have 60FPS- but that just can't work.

Pros (early):
- hey I love the story so far!
- bow aiming is cute… how on earth people played this game with mushrooms?! autoaim?
- controls are pretty good (map is on M for example). except certain raiding thing…
- stealthkill while in grass, AC thing I love!
- melee combat is dodgefriendly, but is not darksouls clone, you don't need to wait for any QTE window to hit, just position (behind usually) and then rock'n'roll
- so far the music is awsome
- sidequests are not useless and have stories behind. one rewards you with an improvement to your melee damage - because you're helping a spear maker family
- turning every stone seems to be rewarding for the type of "adventurers" like me
- there is a FOV slider on PC so push it to 100, default setting looks a bit retarded

Cons (also early):
- to slow/stop a robo while riding it you need to hold ctrl. not s. wtf?!
- tools (pots, bait, traps, call mount, etc) menu is rotate with Y or Z depending on your regional keyboard setup then press F. wtf?!
- checkpoints and not save anywhere. dafuq?!
- NMSlike inventory tetris with rather horrible inventory menus
- generally you can feel where something is by sounds it makes, except quest related NPCs, their voices and yells feel as if they're closeby although are 200m far from you

Neither (early):
- trashmobs respawn, but not instanly like in DAI, and aren't as annoying
- every new trader you meet offers you some lootboxes, and sometimes these are free. no real money to spend here, but still
- after AC Origins and Odyssey it's not easy to adjust on climbing and stuff only where it's predetermined to be possible
- looting… hold E, then confirm with another E or click/F one by one item… this will become boring I think

Wasn't interested when it costed 93 BRL, even less interested after they raised it to 200 BRL without notice, day to night.
This whole "fantasy with machines" thing never managed to grab my attention. I struggled to finish ELEX because of that.

From my news-thread which many probably never look at.

Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition PC Reviews

• GameSpot - 9/10
• PCGamesN - 7/10
• PCMag - 4/5
• Screen Rant - 4.5/5
• CGMagazine - 8/10

Tried it a bit last night, it runs smooth for me. I was afraid that FPS would suffer, but the camera transitions are smooth even in the open, and the game looks really beautiful.

My partner found a "problem" in his ultrawide monitor, and is that for video sequences, instead of black bands on the side, he gets blurred fractions of the scene itself, like when you try to put a mobile video on a 4:3 or 16:9 output. He doesn't like it and thinks it's a bug (like, he rather get black bands, if anything at all) but other than that the game scales well to ultrawide and plays smooth as ever during any gameplay.

Yes, for an unexplainable reason cutscenes look rubbish on ultrawide.

Solution? Modding (hexediting the exe):
https://www.reddit.com/r/widescreen..._to_get_horizon_zero_dawns_cutscenes_running/

Make sure you save a copy of the original exe before doing this.
Hopefully the patch fixes it so modding won't be necessary in the future.

joxer said:

Yes, for an unexplainable reason cutscenes look rubbish on ultrawide.

Solution? Modding (hexediting the exe):
https://www.reddit.com/r/widescreen..._to_get_horizon_zero_dawns_cutscenes_running/

Make sure you save a copy of the original exe before doing this.

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This is the same kind of fix as for Witcher 3 and other games that support ultra-wide but not properly.

I'm always curios why does this kind of executable hack work, why the developers chose not to use it (is it unstable? i had no issues when last I played Witcher 3); and how in the hell do users discover this kind of exe hack. Could it be leaked unofficially by devs?

I've seen no glaring performance issues. Runs pretty smooth with everything on ultra @ 3440x1440. But the controls do seem a bit stilted.