The 10 Biggest Changes In Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered

10 Biggest Changes In Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered

Welcome to MojoPlays, and today, we’re taking a look at 10 massive changes made in “Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered”!

Child Aloy

If there is one change in this remaster that signifies how different “Horizon Zero Dawn” looks and feels, it’s the younger versions of Aloy. In general, kids have always looked off in video games, and in the case of Aloy, some angles and lighting made her look like a demonspawn or something. The remaster has greatly remedied her appearance in a way that makes her look like an actual kid. Many of the other kids seen in the intro got similar upgrades in visuals and animation.

Game Settings

Before we get deep in the mud with the visual alterations, we do want to point out one key change you may want to look into when you hit the main menu. “Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered” features a cornucopia of new settings that affect not just visuals, but audio and gameplay as well. Those with tinnitus and other hearing issues can toggle off any sound effects that might cause discomfort or ringing. You also have a number of controller settings that were available back when “Horizon Forbidden West” launched in 2022. That said, make sure you check out the Settings menu before you go diving into Aloy’s first adventure.

Hair

Another noticeable improvement in the remaster is the hair. While many video games saw improvements in hair visuals and animation in the 2010’s, “Horizon Zero Dawn” still had that stringy look that was reminiscent of computer animation seen in the late 90’s and early 2000’s. And no, it was not reminiscent in a good way. Thankfully, the remaster has shown substantial improvements in this aspect of animation as characters now have more lush and realistic hair color, tones, and shading. Child Aloy has some problems with her hair reflecting light in certain areas, but once you get moving as adult Aloy, the improvements are on full display.

Lighting

The original “Horizon Zero Dawn” did boast an impressive display in lighting and shadow quality considering the time it came out. While many PS4 games were already utilizing some great lighting, very few titles ever came close to matching the quality PC games were seeing. Well, “Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered” is very much blurring the line between console and PC graphics now! From the rays of sunlight in the valley to the sharp contrast of machines scanning the area, the remaster has made “Horizon Zero Dawn” more breathtaking than ever before. Plus, the blue light coming from Watchers, Grazers, and Sawtooths is much more noticeable, making it easier than ever to spot them from a distance.

Character Models

We know we could have mashed Child Aloy into this category, but that whole situation was unique enough to be its own thing. As for the cast as a whole, “Horizon Zero Dawn” did suffer from the uncanny valley with how characters would move while talking. The lack of proper lip syncing didn’t help either. Unfortunately, lip syncing is still a problem in the remaster, but it is less noticeable if you aren’t looking directly at their mouths. Animation, on the other hand, has been vastly expanded upon as character movement now lines up with each actor’s performance. It is much better than the stilted motions of the 2017 original.

Karst

He may be another character we could have mashed into the previous entry, but Karst was another unique example that we just have to talk about. Just look at the original rendition of Karst we got back in 2017. This dude was creepy, and we promise we aren’t trying to pick on him. However, that weird smile he had going on made him look like Mr. Libido from “Yakuza 0”. Thank All-Mother that the remaster fixes Karst! Now, it feels like Aloy can talk to him like normal adults, and he sounds a bit snarkier than he did before.

Voice Acting

Speaking of characters sounding different, playing between the original and the remaster might reveal an interesting detail if you have not been paying attention to the marketing. One of the biggest draws of “Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered” is in how much of the voice acting has been redone. Sony, Guerrilla Games, and Nixxes have talked extensively about how more than ten hours of voiceover and motion capture have been completely redone. Simple side-by-side comparisons of various scenes have shown how much better these performances are now thanks to these efforts. Perhaps some of us were too quick to protest against this remaster after all.

NPCs

This is one subtle improvement we didn’t notice until we began reviewing our own footage. The first village you’ll ever step foot in is Mother’s Heart. In the original, Mother’s Heart seems to be a bit too barren to even be called “a village” let alone “a town”, doesn’t it? For the remaster, Guerrilla Games and Nixxes went into various settlements and added more NPCs, which in some cases, help emphasize some of Aloy’s sarcastic comments when she’s being looked at differently. It’s definitely more effective compared to entering a city where six, maybe seven people are walking around.

All-Mother’s World

While we’re on the subject of environments looking different, the world as a whole is looking a lot more vibrant in the remaster! Again, the 2017 original looked great for its time. The remaster, on the other hand, ups the ante to a whole other level. The world is filled with much more diverse and lively foliage than it ever has been. Guerrilla Games and Nixxes even explained in a PlayStation Blog post how they went about improving the foliage and textures across the different biomes. Many assets were brought over from “Horizon Forbidden West” while others had to be completely redone from scratch. It required a lot of importing files and moving things from older programs into newer versions. If you want to know more about the specifics, we highly recommend you go read that post after we finish our final entry here.

Technical Performance

If you played “Horizon Zero Dawn” back when it initially launched, you’ll remember how the game ran at the time. Thirty frames per second, with minimal chug in some areas. Even a PS4 Pro wouldn’t get it at a higher frame rate. It wasn’t unplayable, but in today’s world where more players value performance over resolution, it might turn some gamers off. Thankfully, you can play the original on PlayStation 5 at a smooth sixty frames if you want. However, “Horizon Zero Dawn” skates by the original because of one reason: rendering. Pop-ins and rendering is far less noticeable in the remaster thanks to the improvements made with the Decima engine and the capabilities of the PlayStation 5 console. In all honesty, this might be the best remaster Sony has published!

Are you playing “Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered”? Tell us your thoughts about the game in the comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe to MojoPlays for more great videos everyday!