The situation of PS5 with respect to its predecessor is similar to the one that the DVD had with the Blu Ray in its day. Only with video games instead of movies. Titles that had been released years ago are released with higher quality than the original version and revamped elements again at full price or even more expensive than before. Is there any justification for this policy?
Why is SONY re-releasing Horizon Zero Dawn on PS5?
We must clarify, first of all, that this is not news confirmed by the people of PlayStation. However, it is surprising that the console has backwards compatibility that certain PS4 classics are re-released on PS5 as if they were a new product. The examples are not few, since it has already happened with titles like Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima, Uncharted or the most recent, the first of The Last of Us that has been released these weeks.
The origin of these versions for PS5 are the versions for PC, which are designed to take full advantage of the performance of computer hardware. Let’s not forget that the hardware of a console is fixed over time and as the years go by its comparative power decreases. So it is expected that the PC version will take full advantage of these, adding technologies that were not in the original game.
So logically, everything points to Horizon Zero Dawn for PS5 would be nothing more than a conversion of the computer version that came out a few years ago and since the launch of God of War: Ragnarok is approaching the console, I of you would not rule out a conversion of the first part of the story from PC to PS5.
Wouldn’t a patch be enough?
One of the things that Xbox has is the so-called Smart Delivery, which makes our Xbox model download the version optimized for it. The trick is that if you have a more powerful console than the one the game was released on, then some graphical features are unlocked via a config file. In this way, it is possible to take much better advantage of the power of the most technically advanced system.
And it is true that in the case of SONY, in many cases a patch that would allow unlocking things like frame rate, resolution or the quality of certain visual effects would suffice. The problem comes when to make the PC version of the game you have had to redo all the graphic code of the game and you find that you have to do a job of adapting it to the new system and seeing that things work. With this we are not justifying SONY’s policy of relaunches, we are simply explaining that it is not something as simple as changing four things.
Another point that is not taken into account are the improvements in the assets of the game, that is, things like the textures, the audio tracks, the modeling of the characters. As with movies, in many cases improvements and even substitutions are made for new elements of higher quality that have had hours of work behind them by the artists and programmers. In any case, if you do not have the PS4 version of the game, for us and for simple quality, it is better that you opt for the PS5 version if you have the console.
