Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn

Developers
	Guerrilla Games
Windows	Virtuos
Publishers
	PlayStation Mobile
Engines
	Decima
Release dates
Windows	August 7, 2020
Reception
Metacritic	85
OpenCritic	83
IGDB	89
Taxonomy
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	ARPG, Open world
Vehicles	Robot
Art styles	Realistic
Themes	Post-apocalyptic, Sci-fi

Horizon Zero Dawn is an open world action role-playing game developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. This game is a port of the 2017 PlayStation 4 console exclusive of the same name. It is the first title that Guerrilla Games have developed for PC following their acquisition by SIE Worldwide Studios, and also marks the fourth game Sony Interactive Entertainment have directly published on the platform under the PlayStation Mobile brand. It is also the second release on PC to make use of the Decima engine, following the previous release of Death Stranding.

The game was initially announced for PC during March 2020 with a placeholder release date for later that year. The final release date, August 7, 2020, was announced in June alongside the release of a trailer showcasing the features of the PC version of the game.

The PC version of the game is available for Windows and distributed through Epic Games Store and Steam as the Complete Edition, which includes The Frozen Wilds expansion, along with a digital art book and additional in-game items, weapons and outfits. It features ultra-widescreen support, high frame rates, adjustable field of view, and remapping for keyboard and mouse controls and controllers.

Reviews published shortly before the global release suggested that the game suffers from a number of technical issues, including stuttering introduced from a variety of different game elements, non-functional graphical settings and major performance issues.

General information

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Epic Games Store
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store
Steam

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Horizon Zero Dawn\Saved Game\profile\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1151640/pfx/

Save game data location

Save files can be imported from a jailbroken Playstation 4.

System	Location
Windows	%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Horizon Zero Dawn\Saved Game\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1151640/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
Epic Games Launcher
OneDrive		Requires enabling backup of the Documents folder in OneDrive on all computers.
Steam Cloud

Video

Display settings

Graphics settings

General settings

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor		Limited to the borderless display mode. Cutscenes are pillarboxed to 16:9. See Ultra-widescreen for a solution.
Ultra-widescreen		Cutscenes are pillarboxed to 16:9. See Ultra-widescreen for a solution.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Ranges from 70°-100° in increments of 10.
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See In-game anisotropic filtering setting does not work.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		Camera-based, FXAA, SMAA, or TAA.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS		30-120 in increments of 10, or Unlimited. Some animations may run at 30 FPS or behave incorrectly due to their original design.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		HDR must be enabled in Windows. Brightness and Whitepoint adjustment sliders are available.

• 

  FOV of 100 at 16:9

• 

  FOV of 100 at 21:9

• 

  FOV of 100 at 32:9

• 

  FOV of 100 at 48:9
  HUD To The Edges is Off

Ultra-widescreen

Native cutscenes at 32:9 resolutions

Cutscenes after modification

Modify the game executable to remove the real-time cutscenes' pillarboxing
This fix is available as patchers for a number of 21:9 and 32:9 resolutions. Open <path-to-game>\HorizonZeroDawn.exe in a hex editor (e.g. HxD). Search for 39 8E E3 3F as hex. Replace it with 26 B4 17 40 (for 2560x1080) or any other aspect ratio in hex. Save the changes. Launch the game and make sure the Display Aspect ratio option is set to Auto.

Input

Control settings

Key remapping

Remapping for a DualShock 4 controller

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping
Mouse acceleration		Negative mouse acceleration is present above 30 FPS.
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Also supports X-axis inversion.
Controller
Controller support
Full controller support
Controller remapping
Controller sensitivity
Controller Y-axis inversion		Also supports X-axis inversion.

Controller types

XInput-compatible controllers
Xbox button prompts
Impulse Trigger vibration

PlayStation controllers		Steam Input must be enabled for the game.
PlayStation button prompts
Light bar support
Adaptive trigger support
DualSense haptic feedback support
Connection modes	Wired V2 tested

Generic/other controllers

Additional information
Controller hotplugging
Haptic feedback
Digital movement supported
Simultaneous controller+KB/M

Steam Input
Steam Input API support
Official controller preset(s)		Steam Controller, Xbox One controller and DualShock 4.
Steam Controller button prompts

Audio

Audio settings

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music, Speech and Sound Effects
Surround sound		Output is automatically set to what the output audio device supports.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Arabic
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Danish
Dutch
Finnish
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Norwegian
Polish
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Latin American Spanish
Swedish

Issues unresolved

Stuttering on some systems

Some systems might experience stuttering during gameplay in areas such as quest or interface updates, camera swaps in cutscenes and general world traversal.

High memory usage

Some users are reporting unexpectedly high system and video memory usage, potentially leading to additional stuttering or crashes on some systems. Potentially due to a memory leak.

Issues fixed

Seldom crashes due to game trying to write to nonexistent memory address

Game is trying to write to memory address 0.

This fix is believed to reduce the number of crashes due to memory write errors.

Some users report that this fix does not work, and may make crashes even more frequent.

Modify the game executable
Open <path-to-game>\HorizonZeroDawn.exe in a hex editor (e.g. HxD). Search for C7 04 25 00 00 00 00 A7 DC EA 0D as hex and replace all instances with 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90 90. Save the changes.

In-game anisotropic filtering setting does not work

The Anisotropic Filtering setting present in-game does not function with the release version of the game.

Force anisotropic filtering in the graphics driver settings.

It's recommended to recompile shaders after changing this setting with NVIDIA GPUs, or else this might cause texture flickering.

1. Open <path-to-game>\LocalCacheDX12\ in Windows Explorer.
2. Delete PSOCache.bin.
3. Launch the game and allow shaders to re-compile.

Game crashes during initial shader compilation

Restart the game after the shader compilation have finished to allow it to free up remaining memory that might otherwise still be occupied.

Free up additional space on the storage device the game is installed on.

Increase page file size.

Shader compilation is reported to require a lot of memory, increasing the page file size could potentially improve or solve any related issues. On Windows 10, use the search functionality within the taskbar to locate and select View advanced system settings. Select the first Settings option under the Performance heading. Select the Advanced tab on the window that appears. Select the Change option under the Virtual Memory heading. Check the Automatically manage paging file size for all drives option or set the C: drive to System managed size.

Save game failed

Some players have reported that the following error will be displayed when trying to write profile or save data:
"Save game failed. Please make sure you have enough free space on system drive, and the game have access to Documents folder."

Run the game as Administrator.

Run the game on a user profile that does not contain any non-Latin characters.

Disable Windows Defender ransomware protection.
On Windows 10, use the search functionality within the taskbar to locate and select Virus & threat protection. Scroll down to select Manage ransomware protection. Toggle Controlled folder access to off if enabled.

Texture flickering and corruption on NVIDIA GPUs

Recompile shaders if you have recently changed anisotropic filtering in the graphics driver settings.
Open <path-to-game>\LocalCacheDX12\ in Windows Explorer. Delete PSOCache.bin. Launch the game and allow shaders to re-compile.

Restore the profile for Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition to the default settings in the NVIDIA Control Panel.

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		Z3D Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	12

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Physics	Havok
Cutscenes	Bink Video

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	10
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3 GHz AMD FX-6300 3.5 GHz	Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5 GHz AMD Ryzen 5 1500X 3.5 GHz
System memory (RAM)	8 GB	16 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	100 GB
Video card (GPU)	Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 AMD Radeon R9 290 3 GB (Nvidia), 4 GB (AMD) of VRAM DirectX 12 compatible	Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 AMD Radeon RX 580 6 GB (Nvidia), 8 GB (AMD) of VRAM

A 64-bit operating system is required.