Horizon Zero Dawn is a seven-year-old video game that was a graphical showcase for the PS4 in its heyday. Guerrilla’s open-world action game was also one of the first PS4 Pro-enhanced titles, receiving an update that boosted the frame rate to 60fps after the PS5 launch. For most publishers, that would have been enough. However, Sony’s newfound passion for remaking/remastering all of its older first-party games has resulted in a technically competent but artistically questionable release with Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.

The concept of remasters and remakes has been mixed in recent years and there is no other game that is a better example than this one. Guerrilla and Nixxes Software have updated the game to match the same visual fidelity as its technically superior sequel, resulting in a much better looking game. But as early marketing materials pointed out, Sony’s remasters tend to disregard strong and intentional art directionand that is partly true here.

I remember Horizon Zero Dawn as a vivid game with suitably muted, tanned colors against the rocky backdrops of futuristic Colorado, Utah and other territories. Sure, the original’s lighting may have leaned too much towards golden hour reds and icy blues, but it didn’t take a facelift of this magnitude to fix them. The one aspect that HZD needed to “fix” was its character models and side quest scene direction, which look and feel quite dated in 2024.

The remaster attempts to update the original’s lighting to match the real world, but with the usual vibrant flourishes of the sequel’s lighting. It also brings character models and cutscenes to a modern standard, along with many minor animations for Aloy and NPCs.

Perhaps it would have been better to keep the new models and assets and color grade the game closer to the original. Aloy’s face may seem “yassified,” as my colleagues put it, but there’s still a noticeable difference between this younger Aloy and her somewhat mature Forbidden West counterpart.

Fortunately, the lighting does not clash with the vision of the original everywhere. The developers seem to have listened to the feedback and stealthily adjusted the rating to get closer to the PS4 game. While light sources bounce realistically across scenes, shades of the signature red and blue glows derived from environments from the original are subtly retained in the remaster.

On the bright side, it also includes modern accessibility and performance options that make a bigger difference in how the game feels. Gyro aiming, options to turn off tinnitus inducing sounds, a smooth save transfer option and new performance modes are welcome here. Some settings and quality of life upgrades are still missing here. I would have preferred an automatic resource fetch toggle, along with updated inventory and crafting menus, the lack of which still clashes with the game’s faster combat. There are also more sound mixers for different outputs optimized for an immersive 3D soundscape, while the original only has a basic mix.

The good news is that you don’t have to double dip and empty your wallet to enjoy these upgrades. If you own the original game, you can upgrade to the remaster for $9.99 or its regional equivalent, and that’s a great deal. Sony is too not remove the original game and it will remain in your library and be easily accessible for years to come.

Those with modern TVs and monitors can enjoy a new “Balanced” performance mode that targets 40fps in a 120Hz bin. For pixel peepers, an incredibly dense quality mode pushes the resolution and asset details as high as the PS5 can handle. The fan-favorite performance mode dials it down a notch for a smooth 60fps output, while the HDR implementation works just as well as it does in Forbidden West.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered updates the original game with mixed results from an artistic perspective, but its abundance of accessibility options, improved performance, and technically improved asset quality make it an unnecessary but worthwhile upgrade.

Score: 8/10

Version tested: PS5

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is available on PC and PS5.