We tested horizon: zero dawn, the presentation game of the ps4 pro

At the Barcelona Games World fair we were lucky to be able to play “ Horizon: Zero Dawn “, the title that Sony is cooking as a letter of introduction for the renewed PS4 Pro. The Sony staff gave explanations we understood to understand the key elements of the game, and answered our questions. Below we review what sensations the game demonstration gives us and what the PS4 Pro seems to offer us.

PS4 Pro: How is it different from PS4 and the new PS4?

It is worth first clarifying what the PS4 Pro is compared to its PS4 sisters and the new PS4 Slim. The original PS4 (we will always find it without any adjective accompanying it) was released in late 2013. Having designed it with the developers and gamers in mind, the console perfectly exploited online gaming connected to social media and streaming platforms. Like an ice cream parlor in August, Sony hit sales records with its PS4 console, in part for an Xbox One that wanted to be many things and made some marketing mistakes at crucial times.

The PS4 finally allowed to play 1080p, the promise that the PS3 did not keep. The jump to 4K was not logical in 2013 since the few 4K televisions were enthusiastically priced and the increase in performance and price would have had a negative impact at that time.

And, inevitably, we planted ourselves in 2016. Three years after starting to sell the “next gen” (I hope no one will continue to call it that) 4K televisions are already within the pocket of the average consumer, and 4K is postulated as Santo Grail of content consumption. With large competitors in both distribution and video playback betting heavily on 4K, this is the key moment for Sony and Microsoft to position their own gamers as potential consumers of 4K video from their own platform.

Okay ok, but are you going to talk about PS4 Pro at once?

Xbox One S and Project Scorpio, Microsoft's bets, we will talk at another time. Sony wanted to renew its console with two models: the "new PS4", which does not depart from the changes in other "Slim" renovations, and the PS4 Pro, which is a real leap in performance.

While the new PS4 is meant to be a smaller model than the original in polishing small details, the PS4 Pro is poised for much more. Support for 4K and HDR video playback is very important, although we are more interested in the games section in this article. The PS4 Pro has the power needed for 1080p gaming with 4K upscaling and HDR, both critical technologies for near-cinematic scenes from games like The Last of Us or Uncharted 4.

With the greatest power, Sony has made it clear that in PS4 Pro games could have improvements over other models but never be decisive. For example, the split screen could be up to 4 on PS4 Pro and 2 on other models, but not exclusive.

Horizon: Zero Dawn Game Review

At the presentation of the new PS4 consoles, a gameplay of Horizon was shown as an example of what the Pro model could do. That is why we look at this title to glimpse how the new console will be.

Status Quo: The action takes place in the future, after a thousand years, post apocalyptic. The human being is no longer at the top of the power pyramid, since a new type of animal populates the earth: robot-animals. These "live" wildly, just like humans.

Story: The protagonist is a hunter who on certain occasions must flee from robots to save her life, because they become aggressive. He discovers that something called Corruption, which can affect humans, is breaking the symbiosis between different types of robots and their neutrality towards humans. He decides to investigate what happens, going against the tribal society in which he lives.

Game Mechanics: The wild world in Horizon is open type, where exploration is inseparable. We were able to play a short gameplay where we tried intuitive controls and faced a pack of robots to capture one that served as a mount. To do this we had to use the strategy, tying our prey to the ground with harpoon arrows and then eliminating the protective robots from the pack. That wild symbiosis is what is going to force us to mount a hunter strategy before each attack. Once captured, we “hacked” the prey to tame it. All this in a robot without Corruption, because as the Sony staff showed us, you cannot deal with those.

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Graphics

Both in the gameplay of the staff and ours the graphic section has been very good knowing that there are six months to go before the game comes out. The Sony staff did not want to go beyond pointing out that the game we tested ran only on a development console, not on a final PS4 Pro, and HDR was not activated. Still, the color gamut was wide, there were no visual artifacts like popping or large frame drops, and the experience was promising.

Depth

This section is rather speculative, based on the few history transitions we could see, in the trailer and in interpretations.

Firstly, in the interaction with other members of the tribe you see scales of power and religion or superstition towards robots. It is also very possible that as we move forward we will discover why the society that created robots has ceased to exist. Finally, and perhaps it is very fine spinning, the protagonist is called Aloy, very close to the English term alloy . In a wild world with robots, being a woman with no known parents in a superstitious tribal society… we can glimpse a grayscale plot.

All these elements, in our opinion, are going to add depth to the game that, as in any cultural event, takes us beyond enjoyment. Many games have it but not all of them get the player to connect and make it their own. This differentiates a good dystopia from an entertaining one, we hope that Horizon makes us enjoy also in that aspect.

Conclusions about Horizon

Horizon's gameplay has left us hungry for more information about how the PS4 Pro will improve games, inside and outside the graphics section. We can't wait to find out more!