Since its announcement at the PS5 reveal event, players have been going crazy over Horizon: Forbidden West, with a mysterious new story, stunning visuals, and new machine designs being showcased. However, there is one aspect that comes with the game releasing on a next-gen console that players just aren't talking about, and it may be that it has just slipped their minds.
The new feature for Horizon: Forbidden West is actually a lack of a feature that plagues open world games, including the original Horizon: Zero Dawn. Specifically, it's how the PS5's SSD cuts load times to the point that players can explore most games with almost all load screens being virtually eliminated.
No Loading the Open World of Horizon: Forbidden West
Horizon: Zero Dawn already had a pretty decently sized map, stretching from Nora Territory all the way to the Carja Desert, with plenty scattered around in between. From the trailer, it looks like Horizon: Forbidden West's map might be even bigger, with even more biomes for the player to explore as they make the trip out west. With such a huge world available to explore, it'll be important for the game to be able to keep the area Aloy is either in or arriving to loaded in at all times as to not cause players to stumble or get stuck in loading zones.
This effect is often rare in open world titles, but does certainly crop up in titles within the genre from The Witcher 3 to Skyrim, and can really kill the freely exploring vibe and kill the immersion that these games try so hard to capture. Essentially, no matter how breathtaking Horizon: Forbidden West looks in screenshots, if the system stutters to load areas, that will be the takeaway when players are exploring. So if all the talk about the PS5's load times is to be believed, then it may be greatest era of open world gaming yet, and that's not even mentioning dungeons and Cauldrons for Horizon specifically.
Cauldrons
Most of the areas in Horizon: Zero Dawn do a great job of integrating smoothly into the open world, often not relying on load screens to have Aloy enter a dungeon, stronghold, or Cauldron. However, the telltale signs of hidden load screens are there whenever the player enters one of these places that some secret loading is happening behind the scenes. With long hallways to run down that twist and turn to obscure the area ahead and behind the player, as well as jumping points with their own specific animations that keeps the camera focused away from the loading and culling happening off-screen.
The freedom of design that a faster load time could offer could reshape how Horizon: Forbidden West even approaches these dungeons in the future. This could mean that Cauldrons in the next game could have stampedes of robots rushing through them thanks to more streamlined designs, or giant, moving Cauldrons on the backs of brand new mechanical beasts. Either way, cutting down the need to section these areas off can lead to some impressive new ways for the optional dungeons to interact with the world.
Fast Travel
Of course, when it comes to load times, there's nothing more impactful in open world titles on how long a player spends staring at a screen with hints attached to it than fast travel. Having become a staple of these types of games, fast travel has often introduced its own set of complications and conveniences for players who want to quickly hop around the map to follow up on quests and hidden objectives. However, the taxing nature of these methods and how they impact both the flow of gameplay and load times has led some developers to pull fast travel all together.
In the case of Horizon: Zero Dawn, fast travel was available from fairly early on in the game, and unlike loading into Cauldrons, it was one of few times when players had to wait as the entire map loaded around them. So with load times shrunk down to almost nothing, new titls could potentially make fast travel instantaneous, picking players up in the desert before dropping them off at the beach seconds later. Meaning that the vast open worlds of post-apocalyptic America can make Horizon: Forbidden West perfect for PS5, with the game coming right out of the gate to show how the new SSD can revolutionize open world titles.
Larger Roaming Patrols
One limitation of Horizon: Zero Dawn was caused by a limitation of the PS4 and the way that the mechanized beasts had to be sectioned off into their own little arenas where the player could fight them. This often made for well designed locations full of platforms and structures to lay traps in duck behind in order to gain the advantage against enemies. However, this also meant that enemies rarely left their relatively small arenas and encounters became limited to repetitive battles and Hunting Grounds challenges.
Opening up the world in Horizon: Forbidden West without the limitations of having to worry about loading in new sections of the map could give the machines more complex patrol routes and add whole new layers to features like mounted combat. This could also lead into how Horizon: Forbidden West might approach multiplayer, with players hunting down Thunderjaw sized machines, or larger, in massive areas where they can roam similar to Monster Hunter World. Beyond that, larger areas for monsters to explore and fight in could lead to enhanced mounted combat where players ride alongside the machines and have to strip them of armor and mobility as they chase them down.
The full effects of removing load times from games in Next-Gen consoles is still up to theory and debate at the moment. However, as developers discover how to best design around these newly opened limits, titles like Horizon: Forbidden West will likely be redefining their respective genres. Additionally, if Sony wants to maximize on PS5's launch titles, it's going to need to be exclusive games and in-house developers like Guerrilla Games that are going to have to step up this holiday season.
Horizon: Forbidden West is set to release in 2021, for PS5.