Horizon: Forbidden West has finally landed on PC and in this review we will reveal the strengths and weaknesses of Nixxes' latest conversion
The Horizon saga has always had the terrible habit of coming out in conjunction with some of the biggest titles in the industry. In 2017 Horizon: Zero Dawn crossed the prodigious Zelda: Breath of the Wild and in 2022 the sequel found itself in front of Elden Ring. This port also had the misfortune of crossing Dragon's Dogma 2 and Rise of the Ronin in its footsteps. With the following article we want to present to you what is a high-level conversion and ensure that it is not buried in oblivion by the large concomitant releases. We will focus mainly on its technical characteristics.
Furthermore, we will take great care to report the terms of the experience on our test configuration and analyze the optimization work carried out by the Dutch team. To play the Guerrilla game we used a machine equipped with an i7 12700K CPU, an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti Laptop as a GPU and 32 GB of RAM, as well as an essential SSD to enjoy the title to the fullest. Having made the necessary preambles, we refer you to the original review to find out the verdict on the entire game, while here we will focus the analysis on the technical profile.
The splendor of the forbidden west | Horizon: Forbidden West PC review
The Decima Engine had already shown its muscles on PC thanks to the porting of Zero Dawn and Death Stranding, appearing not too expensive in its requirements but brilliant in the graphic performance of the title. That doesn't change this time either and we find ourselves on our monitors a disarming quality of environments. The landscapes of the forbidden west stand out thanks to a very high draw distance, which allows you to stretch your gaze to the horizon. In doing so the quality of the individual elements is not sacrificed at all. We had never seen one such variety and precision in modeling the vegetation which is very rich in different shrubs and plants and with attention to the smallest details.
The yield of the particles also borders on excellence, particularly that of sand thrown up in towering swirls by the wind and pollen swaying in the breezes. These, a pleasant surprise, do not seem to have an excessive impact on performance which remains almost unchanged even when they increase dramatically. We also have to give praise to the animations and facial models, which although they experience a decline in the less important NPCs, reach rather high peaks among the main characters. All this, combined with an effective and astute art design, helps to make your journey with Aloy memorable and to paint frescoes of remarkable beauty.
Going into detail | Horizon: Forbidden West PC review
Wanting to be more punctual and meticulous in the investigation, it is time to examine the numerous settings made available by Nixxes. In Forbidden West they are present four basic presets: minimum, medium, max and super and the most marked differences are found among the first three. In fact, the transition from max to super appeared to us to be non-essential and the improvements it brought about do not really justify the drop in performance. The sectors with the greatest impact on your card will be those delegated to the management of shadows and reflections. Making do, in this case, can help those who have older graphics cards but requires serious compromises in the graphic quality of the title.
In particular, only the max setting gave us the impression of rendering shadows that were neither too soft nor too sharp, while min and med showed the possibility of some defects and even the disappearance of minute details. The ambient occlusion using SSAO is brilliant, which we consider essential and vital to make the appearance of terrain textures more realistic. These, in particular, reach very high levels provided you have sufficient VRAM. Our 8GB was enough to guarantee a fluid experience by setting them to the maximum but we advise owners of architectures with 6GB of Vram to limit themselves to the medium preset to avoid heavy stutter.
Reflections are slightly subdued, in particular those of the water, which would have benefited from the implementation of Ray Tracing while the underwater panoramas remain of great value. All in all, little changes between the PS5 version and the PC version which returns slight improvements to an already excellent title in this field. However, we would have expected a little more, that is, a truly notable gap compared to the console version. It remains, equally, a splendid conversion and an absolute peak in technical terms.
Question of frames | Horizon: Forbidden West PC review
Where painstaking work has been carried out is in what concerns the management of the framerate. Nixxes allows you, for example, to choose one dynamic resolution scaling which directs the work of the DLSS towards maintaining a pre-established fluidity. For TAA fans, who would prefer to go beyond the mandatory DLAA in case of Nvidia upscaling, there is the possibility to conveniently choose their preferred anti aliasing. Furthermore, even in the absence of DLSS, At 1440p reconstructed we have in fact maintained 60fps through dynamic scaling.
Instead, at 1080p we managed to maintain around 70 fps with unlocked fps, although with more marked drops. Therefore a cap on the framerate seemed decidedly more promising than a higher but stuttering fluidity and Nvidia's upscaling guaranteed decent results in every preset with the exception of ultra performance. We also point out that it is the annoying stuttering phenomenon is almost totally absent, both thanks to excellent optimization and via V Sync. Some hiccups occur rather sporadically and mainly in cutscenes, we imagine due to the lack of VRAM in some scenes. For the rest the experience runs perfectly smoothly.
At the end of the paragraph we mention how some of them are localized crashes, regarding which we are not certain of the origin nor do we know if they depend on the configuration on which the game was tested. Despite all these appear very rarely and should not excessively affect the gaming experience.
A new story
We close the review of the PC version by mentioning the basic characteristics of the title which are expanded in the review of the original Horizon: Forbidden West. The title follows the adventures of young Aloy when she sets out into the forbidden west in search of her former mentor Sylens. The game features a vast but scholastic open world in which to participate in hundreds of secondary activities. Furthermore, a appears vast quantity of new machines: the mechanical enemies to be shot down with bow and arrows which seemed varied and inspired. Dizzying is, as you will have understood, the splendid art design underlined more than ever by cutting-edge technical performances.
The PC version is a welcome arrival, but perhaps not the triumph we might have expected. It remains a highly refined operation, where nothing is left to chance and which boasts the now necessary precompilation of the shaders, essential to avoid marked hiccups in the game. The lack of ray tracing and some sporadic crashes force us to slightly decrease the rating but Nixxes' work remains of extraordinary value.
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Points in favor
- Technically cutting-edge
- Excellent fluidity and almost no stutter
- Rich amount of settings
Points against
- Even more could have been done
- Some sporadic crashes