Horizon Forbidden West is generally considered to be a big improvement over Horizon Zero Dawn. Still, it’s not without its faults, as many players reported bugs and odd graphics issues upon release. As an example, the foliage quality in Horizon Forbidden West’s performance mode was a big issue for some players, and they didn’t want to play the game in the much-sharper Favor Resolution mode at 30 FPS.
Developer Guerrilla Games has released various patches for Horizon Forbidden West that were aimed at fixing bugs and solving technical issues. The previously released Patch 1.07 added an option to fully turn off the HUD, and it also reportedly improved the vegetation quality in performance mode. It does look like the game should’ve been delayed for a few weeks, but the developer has been releasing updates at an impressively fast pace. Guerrilla Games has now released Patch 1.08 for Horizon Forbidden West and detailed all the changes coming in this update.
It should be noted that these patch notes may contain spoilers for Horizon Forbidden West. The patch notes start by listing out all the known problems that are not fixed in the update, including the issues related to shimmering, sharpening, and screen saturation. The next section details some bugs that were present in main story quests, side quests, and open-world activities, and have now been fixed in this update.
Guerrilla Games has also made improvements to shadows and clouds in Horizon Forbidden West, and fixed an issue with frozen controls in Photo Mode. Then, the section on stability confirms that Patch 1.08 adds crash fixes, along with improvements to streaming and visual popping in the game. Finally, the notes end with detailing fixes for other issues, such as the music track getting stuck on repeat or Aloy getting stuck in the geometry.
Curiously, the patch notes mention that update 1.08 implements “Several balancing changes to weapons and enemies”, but they do not share any details regarding the same. Perhaps the changes are too minor and will not have any impact on the difficulty curve, but many players would still want to know about any changes made to weapons in Horizon Forbidden West.
Fans in the comments are thanking the developers for their hard work and for consistently updating the game. It looks like the above-mentioned shimmering problems are particularly prevalent on OLED screens, and hopefully, Guerrilla Games can solve this issue in the coming weeks.
The full patch notes can be found below:
KNOWN ISSUES
We are currently looking into several issues reported by the community. Please note that these issues are not yet fixed in this patch, but our teams are investigating them with high priority.
- The team are continuing to investigate and tweak the reported graphical issues regarding shimmering, sharpening and screen saturation.
- Some players have reported multiple issues with various types of traversal after the player fast travels to any campfire while gliding inside of a tornado.
- Some players have reported an issue with receiving the reward after completing the Black Box Collectibles activity.
FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
Main Quests
- Fixed an issue in main quest ‘To The Brink’ where using Silent Strike on a quest-specific Bristleback would teleport the player to Chainscrape.
- Fixed an issue in main quest ‘The Dying Lands’ where Varl and Zo would sometimes idle outside of Plainsong and block progression.
- Fixed an issue in main quest ‘The Dying Lands’ where Aloy’s companions would not lead the way after restarting from a specific save.
- Fixed an issue in main quest ‘The Broken Sky’ where reloading a certain save could sometimes disable fast travel unintentionally.
- Fixed an issue in main quest ‘Cradle of Echoes’ where loading a save created on the previous patch would cause Aloy to be stuck in the Base.
- Fixed an issue in main quest ‘Thebes’ where Aloy’s breathing sounds were playing during a cinematic sequence.
- Fixed an issue in main quest ‘All That Remains’ where restarting from a certain save would cause Aloy to spawn in the Base and unable to leave.
Side Quests
- Fixed an issue in side quest ‘The Bristlebacks’ where Ulvund didn’t get the memo and stuck around in Chainscrape after the quest was completed.
- Fixed an issue in side quest ‘What Was Lost’ where Kotallo would sometimes become unresponsive when reloading from a specific save.
- Fixed an issue in side quest ‘Blood For Blood’ where Kavvoh and Arokkeh could not be interacted with in specific circumstances, blocking progression.
- Fixed an issue in side quest ‘Forbidden Legacy’ where fast traveling during the Slitherfang encounter would cause the machine to not respawn, thus blocking progression.
- Fixed an issue in side quest ‘The Roots that Bind’ where the quest objective "Go to the Drumroot" would not complete after damaging the Widemaws from a large distance.
- Fixed an issue in errand quest ‘Call And Response’ where killing the enemies before receiving the objective to do so could block progression.
World Activities
- Fixed an issue in Gauntlet Run, where passing the finish line in last place would result in a win in specific circumstances.
- Fixed several issues with specific Firegleam and Metal Flower icons not being displayed on the map.
- Fixed an issue where Firegleam icons would not be correctly removed from the map once the related activity was completed.
- Fixed an issue where fast travel would be disabled in specific circumstances when loading a save made while playing Machine Strike.
UI/UX
- Fixed an issue where the Machine Strike UI would briefly flicker at the end of a game.
Graphics
- Fixed an issue where Aloy wouldn’t appear wet anymore after being in water.
- Multiple graphics fixes and improvements in cinematics.
- Multiple visual improvements in shadows and clouds.
- Fixed an issue where Photo Mode controls would be frozen when initiating Photo Mode during a swan dive.
Performance and Stability
- Multiple crash fixes.
- Multiple performance and streaming improvements in cinematics.
- Removed multiple unintentional loading screens and black screens.
- Fixed multiple instances of streaming and visual popping.
Other
- Made several improvements to the NPCs’ movement and animations in settlements.
- Made it easier to tag individual components when using motion aiming and scanning machines.
- When picking up potions or tools that don't fit in your toolbelt anymore they are now moved to the stash.
- Several balancing changes to weapons and enemies.
- Fixed several instances where Aloy could get stuck in geometry.
- Fixed an issue where the ‘All Machine Types Scanned’ trophy could be easily missed during the final main quest ‘Singularity’.
- Fix for the mount call sometimes causing the flying mount to be spawned in undesirable positions and in rare cases be unreachable.
- Several datapoints that are located in areas that the player could not return to are now automatically unlocked upon the player leaving that space.
- Fixed multiple instances of specific music tracks getting stuck and repeating.
Horizon Forbidden West is available now on PS4 and PS5.
Source: Reddit