Horizon Forbidden West Just Got a New Feature 4 Years Later

Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 just got a new feature, four years after its original release, thanks to a new update from Guerrilla Games, the first it has issued to the open-world RPG this year. As a four-year-old single-player game, Horizon Forbidden West doesn’t get frequent updates anymore, and there is no real reason to expect it to. However, last year, the PS5 was updated with a new feature, and Guerrilla Games has now updated the PS5 game to support said feature.

Last year, Sony updated the PS5 with a new low-power mode that essentially puts games that support the feature in a lower-power mode when applicable. In short, the game performance is tuned down in favor of saving energy. This may not seem very relevant, but it’s a relevant amount of energy, sometimes tuning the console down to 50% less energy consumption. It is unclear why it took Guerrilla Games so long to add this basic feature, but it’s finally here for those who want to do their part in reducing their power consumption.

Horizon Forbidden West on Handheld?

There have long been rumors that this feature is setting up a scaling option for Sony to allow PS5 games to run on a PS5 handheld or to allow PS6 games to run on a PS6 handheld.

As for how the feature works, it targets the CPU and GPU, reducing graphic fidelity and sometimes reducing frame rate as well. The feature itself is seamless, so you won’t notice the changes once they happen, but when they happen, you may notice the downgrade. That said, the feature is completely optional and only there for those who want something like this. It’s not clear how many PS5 users actually want this, as it’s not been added as a result of demand. This feature is rather part of a larger Sony “Road to Zero” initiative.

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Horizon Forbidden West is one of the better-looking games on PS5, especially within the open-world genre, so the idea of making it look worse seems to run contrary to the game itself, but consquently, even on the lower-power mode, it still looks good, unlike some other games.

What’s coming next for Horizon Forbidden West, remains to be seen. There probably isn’t going to be much in terms of future updates. That said, there have been rumors for a couple of years now that a sequel is in the works at Guerrilla Games.

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