Guerrilla Games have actually gone to city on the PC port of Horizon Zero Dawn. Not solely have they unlocked the game’s body charge and added in shinier graphics presets to offer it PS4-beating performance on comparatively low-end {hardware}, however it’s additionally considered one of 2020’s massive PC games to get 21:9 ultrawide help. The latter is one thing I’ve been notably wanting ahead to after the excellent ultrawide shenanigans of its Decima Engine-sharing stablemate Death Stranding, and so I believed I’d take a better take a look at how Horizon Zero Dawn’s 21:9 help works on PC, displaying you what it appears like at 3440×1440 and the way it offers with the game’s cutscenes.
Now, whereas it’s since turn out to be obvious that not all members of the press have had fairly as clean an expertise as I’ve with Horizon Zero Dawn’s PC port, I can solely report by myself expertise of the game, which as far as been fairly plain-sailing. To take a look at Horizon Zero Dawn’s ultrawide help, I used Asus’ ROG Swift PG35VQ, the identical monitor that I’ve been utilizing to play Death Stranding. This is a curved 35in, 3440×1440 show with a 200Hz refresh charge and Nvidia G-Sync Ultimate help, and I’ll be writing up a separate overview of this monitor very quickly. In the meantime, although, it successfully has all the pieces I must get probably the most out of Horizon Zero Dawn on PC, because it means I could make use of all its new options in a single fell swoop, from its uncapped body charges and HDR help to its pretty ultrawide facet ratio.
The excellent news is that Horizon Zero Dawn does, the truth is, help the identical ultrawide resolutions as your typical ultrawide gaming monitor – that’s, 3440×1440 or 2560×1080. That would possibly sound like the obvious factor on the earth, however as you could recall from my take a look at Death Stranding’s ultrawide support, Kojima Productions took a slightly extra cinematic method to the game’s 21:9 facet ratio help, opting as a substitute for a ‘true’ decision of 3360×1440 / 2520×1080. This meant there have been nonetheless tiny black bars working down the facet of your display screen in Death Stranding, however fortunately this isn’t the case in Horizon.
Here, there’s nothing getting in the way in which of the game’s 21:9 goodness, and cor, what a sight it’s, too. Just check out these GIFs to see what I imply.
The dangerous information is that Guerrilla Games have maintained their authentic 16:9 facet ratio for all of Horizon Zero Dawn’s in-game cutscenes. That means all the pieces from massive story sequences, like Aloy’s massive rising up montage in the beginning of the game, to tiny NPC interactions equivalent to participating quest givers in dialog. This is a contact disappointing, particularly after Kojima’s workforce went to the difficulty of re-doing all of Death Stranding’s cutscenes to work with its newly supported facet ratio.
However, slightly than shrink the motion down with a pair of black bars when this occurs, a la Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon Zero Dawn opts for an altogether completely different method by ‘extending’ the scene with darkened, blurred out recreations of the scene in query, duplicating the perimeters of the unique 16:9 footage so it nonetheless fills the width of the monitor.
I’m of two minds about this. On the one hand, I like that I don’t should take care of horrible black bars each 5 minutes, however on the opposite I additionally discover it fairly distracting. It’s advantageous when the cutscene is comparatively easy in composition, as this permits the blurred-out sections of the display screen to really feel like a pure extension of what’s occurring in entrance of me, as you may see under:
It will get extra problematic when the cutscene grows in complexity, although. Take a take a look at little Aloy discovering her scanner doodad for the primary time. The scene works when she’s simply scrabbling round within the darkened cave, however the second she prompts her new trinket, the augmented actuality mesh that surrounds her is abruptly reduce off when it hits the blurred bits.
There’s a faint hint of it coming by means of within the blurry extra, however the way in which it’s been duplicated means the strains are additionally on the fallacious angle, including to the sense that there’s simply one thing barely off about it – a problem I’d think about solely will get worse once you begin enjoying Horizon on tremendous ultrawide screens such because the 32:9 Samsung CRG9. Guerrilla Games have stated that Horizon Zero Dawn does help 32:9 facet ratios along with 21:9 shows, however I’d assume this prolonged pillar-box impact can be much more jarring when there’s a lot extra of it to have a look at.
It’s not splendid, however I’m additionally conscious that this barely marmite method will in all probability be far much less distracting for some than others. The extra time I spend enjoying the game, the extra grateful I’m that it doesn’t simply hold chopping to black bars on a regular basis. Sure, it will have been nice if all of the cutscenes had been redone in 21:9 like Death Stranding (or on the very least the small NPC conversations), however I’ll take a obscure, blurry suggestion of one thing over a literal black gap any day of the week.
Where Horizon Zero Dawn actually shines in ultrawide is its intensive HUD and subject of view controls. You’ll discover the previous within the General tab of the Settings menu, whereas the latter is tucked away in Display, however golly, these actually do pack a severe punch.
I’ll begin with the HUD, which is about to push all the pieces to the sting of the display screen by default, permitting you to get the complete whack of the game’s beautiful vistas. It’s nonetheless fairly a busy HUD within the grand scheme of issues, particularly in comparison with the tremendous minimal Death Stranding, however it’s not such as you’re having to always crane your head to examine for context delicate controls as you do in Red Dead Redemption 2, and I discovered it fairly manageable like this.
Horizon Zero Dawn’s HUD is about to seem on the edges of the display screen by default.
You can, nevertheless, flip this off to return the HUD to its authentic 16:9 place.
You can, nevertheless, select to change off HUD To The Edges, which sticks all of the bars again to their authentic 16:9 place, as proven above. This does make it simpler to see at a look, however it does obscure a few of the game’s pretty backdrops. Fortunately, it’s also possible to dictate how a lot of the HUD you see onscreen at any given time. As properly as switching off the search and waypoint pathfinder, it’s also possible to change the size of the HUD, making components greater by as much as 1.2x their authentic measurement (or smaller by as much as 0.7x), and set it to Dynamic or Custom.
The former will hold all the pieces to a minimal except you’re in fight, and it additionally provides you the choice of solely displaying the HUD once you maintain down H. Custom, alternatively, permits you to modify each tiny element, from enemy consciousness icons, well being bars and harm numbers to greater stuff like your compass, reticule and stealth indicator. You’ve received buckets of alternative, in different phrases, a variety of which works a protracted method to make up for the game’s barely underwhelming cutscenes.
Horizon Zero Dawn additionally has a Dynamic HUD choice, which drastically reduces the quantity of stuff onscreen.
Alternatively, you should utilize the Custom HUD settings to show off all the pieces in case you so want.
Combine these HUD settings with Horizon Zero Dawn’s subject of view bar, nevertheless, and also you’re off to the ultrawide races. It’s set to 70 levels by default, which has the digicam hug Aloy’s again very like it did within the PS4 authentic. However, in case you set it to the highest 100 levels setting, the digicam yawns again to point out a a lot bigger proportion of the encircling surroundings.
There’s a little bit of fish-eye occurring at this type of FOV extremity, however man alive does it make the game’s expansive vistas look infinitely prettier and extra inviting. You get a a lot larger sense of what’s occurring round you when the digicam’s pulled again like this, and it actually lends itself to making a extra immersive ultrawide expertise.
- 70 levels
- 80 levels
- 90 levels
- 100 levels
Of course, you do want an inexpensive graphics card to benefit from Horizon Zero Dawn in ultrawide, particularly if you wish to benefit from its additional FOV settings. I’ll be doing a extra in-depth graphics efficiency piece tomorrow to point out you what sort of body charges you may anticipate on completely different high quality settings with as many alternative graphics playing cards I can get my arms on, however the FOV slider does make a distinction.
For instance, I discovered my RTX 2070 Super averaged round 55fps on Ultimate Quality at 3440×1440 with the FOV slider at its default 70 levels, however this dropped to round 50fps after I set the FOV to 100 levels. Consequently, if I wished to take care of that increased body charge at 100 levels FOV, I felt like I needed to drop the standard preset right down to its PS4-oriented ‘Original’ settings to get a body charge that was persistently above 60fps.
Personally, I used to be fairly completely happy enjoying Horizon Zero Dawn at 50-odd fps with my RTX 2070 Super, because it nonetheless felt completely clean and playable to me within the second. Besides, something above the locked 30fps you get on console is a bonus in my e-book, so you need to nonetheless get loads of enjoyment out of Horizon Zero Dawn even when your graphics card struggles to succeed in a gentle 60fps. That stated, in case you fall into the camp the place it’s 60fps on Max or bust, then you definitely’ll in all probability wish to make sure you’ve received an RTX 2080 Super in your PC, particularly in case you’re eyeing up that 100 levels FOV slider.
Overall, although, Horizon Zero Dawn does look a deal with in ultrawide, even when its cutscenes aren’t fairly to the identical normal as outdated Death Stranding. There are loads of further settings available to essentially benefit from that additional display screen width, and the game’s insanely fairly and detail-packed environments have by no means regarded extra jaw-droppingly beautiful. Plus, its photograph mode helps the complete 21:9 facet ratio as properly, which is greater than might be stated for Red Dead Redemption 2. If you’ve received an ultrawide monitor at house, you need to undoubtedly give it a go.
