After being a PS4 exclusive title for three years, Horizon: Zero Dawn has finally landed on PC. Similar to its PS4 counterpart, Horizon received great reviews on PC from critics across the gaming industry.
The PC port of Horizon: Zero Dawn has plenty of new features and upgrades compared to its PS4 predecessor, now that it’s on more powerful hardware. However, one PC feature that’s getting attention now is the fact that Guerilla Games programed native Xbox controller support into Horizon’s PC port.
Horizon: Zero Dawn is massively popular on PC, despite the game launching on PC for less than a week at the time of writing this. Naturally, there was a large section of the gaming community who didn’t get to experience the title because it was a PlayStation exclusive. Now, players with access to a gaming PC can understand why Horizon received such high praise from fans of the game who’d experienced it following its release on PS4 in 2017.
While the game has since been dethroned from its top spot on Steam by Fall Guys, Horizon was an instant top seller on Steam for a few days following it’s launch on August 7. The port has tons of features and enhancements only available on PC, including one very noteworthy feature regarding controller options. As mentioned above, it seems that Guerilla Games took the time to develop and implement native Xbox controller support, complete with a custom graphic detailing the appropriate button layout and controls.
Now, while some fans may get excited upon seeing this news thinking that it could lead to a Horizon port on the Xbox family of systems, expectations should be curbed a little bit. Sony’s PlayStation brand and Microsoft’s Xbox brand are direct competitors in the industry, especially right now as PS5 and Xbox One X are nearly upon us. It wouldn’t make to much sense for Sony to allow Microsoft to completely utilize one of their most successful exclusive titles.
Realistically, this was simply a necessity for Guerilla Games to implement into the PC port, or at best it was a nice gesture of goodwill towards PC players and Microsoft. Still, it is nice to see such a convenient and handy feature implemented into the PC port, as many PC players use Xbox controllers to play Steam games. Of course, the PC port of Horizon: Zero Dawn comes with a plethora of other cool features and upgrades, provided that player’s PCs have the recommended specs.
Horizon Zero Dawn is available now on PS4 and PC.