Introduction

Horizon Zero Dawn was first released in February 2017, exclusively for the PlayStation 4. The title is created by the dutch game studio Guerrilla Games and published by Sony. This is the second PlayStation exclusive that's coming to the PC Platform—Death Stranding was released just a few weeks ago. Horizon Zero Dawn is an open-world action role-playing game that's similar in concept to Tomb Raider or Assassin's Creed, with some elements from titles like Far Cry, Zelda, and The Witcher.

The plot evolves around Aloy, a female hunter in a post-apocalyptic world that's home to scattered tribes using primitive technology to fight machines that roam the Earth. As the story progresses, you make contact with other groups and explore the vast open landscapes.



In terms of graphics, Horizon Zero Dawn looks highly impressive, both the environments and character models are extremely detailed. Textures are sharp and crisp, too. Horizon Zero Dawn is built on the Decima Engine, which is used by several other console titles; for example, Death Stranding, but with slightly different requirements. On the PC, the engine runs on DirectX 12 exclusively, featuring realistic physics for objects and lighting. Unlike Death Stranding, HZD does not support NVIDIA DLSS, and RTX Raytracing is not included, either.

In this performance test review we put the game through our huge selection of graphics cards at three resolutions and also include a mini review at the end, so you'll know whether the game is worth paying full price for or you had better wait for a discount.