Two years after the PlayStation release of Horizon Forbidden West, PC gamers can now join Aloy and Magical AirPod’s Journey to The Forbidden West, published on Steam and Epic Game Store.
This marks another PlayStation-exclusive game coming to the PC ecosystem just like Guerrilla Games previous entry Horizon Zero Dawn.
Different from the Zero Dawn port handled by Guerilla Games in cooperation with Virtuos, Forbidden West PC port is handled by Nixxes, a studio that assisted Guerilla for Zero Dawn Complete Edition PC game patches. As per any console-to-PC ports, the million dollar question is “is it a good port?”
Story and Content
Important to note, the PC edition of Horizon Forbidden West releases as the Complete Edition which includes the Burning Shores expansion. For a more in-depth review, our editor Amirul “Meckronos” Ashraf already reviewed the base game and Burning Shores DLC for PlayStation. Check them out as there is no difference in story beat between the PlayStation and PC releases. We’ll mostly focus on the PC specific points in this article plus some of my personal thoughts on the game itself.
If you want the TL:DR version:
Horizon Forbidden West is a well-done sequel to the critically-acclaimed Horizon Zero Dawn. Aloy’s saga versus the still not-defeated rogue AI HADES continues as she heads to the Forbidden West in search of GAIA system backup to detoxify Earth.
Horizon Forbidden West builds upon the previous game with more of everything; weapons, skills, skill trees, quests, puzzles, mini-games etc. It also improves upon some of the UI annoyances and streamline them accordingly like inventory management and trading menus.
However, these new contents somewhat fails to add depth to the sequel. Rather, they’re just piled on top to make it more complex for complexity sake. But for fans of the genre and even the broad swathes of the general gaming community, Horizon Forbidden West is worthy of consideration as it checks all the boxes of a great open-world action RPG.
First Class Controls
In my honest opinion, 3rd person games like Horizon are better played with gamepad. However, a good mouse and keyboard controls are crucial for PC games as they are the primary means of interaction and not everyone has a gamepad. Owing to that, I only played Horizon Forbidden West with a mouse and keyboard.
Happy to report that the mouse and keyboard controls and settings are excellent. Default key mappings are sensible, and full rebinding and secondary mapping options capable. For example, the Focus key is tied to V, and I secondary bound it to a mouse thumb button because of how often it gets spammed. Heavy melee is by default secondary mapped to the other thumb button which eases in chaining melee combos.
Mouse movements are given the same treatment with adequate mouse sensitivity adjustment and even the X-axis and Y-axis invert toggle for the inverted axes freaks out there.
One advantage of using mouse and keyboard controls is that it makes combat less punishing and more fluid as compared to game pads. For a refresher, enemies like machine animals have weak spots, and specific to the machines are detachable parts that yield extra loot that will be destroyed if not detached before death. One complaint from Meck in the PS version was difficulty in aiming for enemy weak spots in the fast paced combat no thanks to the agile machines.
Granted, the game does provide a slo-mo aiming mechanic, likely to optimize controller users but when it gets intense and your slo-mo meter has depleted, aiming for the Bristlebacks’ acid cylinders with a mouse is a whole lot less stressful.
Some small touches like double tap to dodge is a godsend for dodging attacks during intense fights. However it can be a double edged sword as attempts at precision walking on a cliff-side turns to a suicide attempt by nosediving. Fortunately, it is just a simple OFF toggle in the options. Pick your poison.
Overall, I am thoroughly satisfied that mouse and keyboard controls are given first-class support in this PC version. I will go back to my Xbox controller but hey, the other option is just as good.
Graphics
Just like its PlayStation counterpart, Horizon Forbidden West visual presentation is pure eye-candy. The environment designers clearly had their fun crafting the world, with the Decima engine flexing its muscles carrying the heavy load.
I had the luxury of playing Death Stranding that uses the same engine, and the wide open vistas of both franchises are masterfully sculptured on-screen, even more so in Horizon. The lush vegetation and the world is awash with vibrant colors that pops plus the mechanical yet organic look and feel of the machines.
However, rendering all these beauty comes at a cost, the cost of hardware power. CPU-wise, you can make do with 8th-gen Intel i3 or even first-gen Ryzen 3 for minimum spec and above. Just make sure to have a quite powerful GPU in your system as even at minimum spec (720p 30fps low), Forbidden West needs the equivalent of Nvidia GTX 1650. Running at recommended spec (1080p 60fps high) requires RTX3060/RX5700 equivalent and above. Not to mention the ginormous 150GB of SSD space needed.
The minimum spec somewhat matches the Steam Deck so I did the next best thing and tried to run the game around Steam Deck equivalent hardware. The result: not bad. At 720p, I can set a mix of medium-low settings and get a respectable 30-45 fps. I tried on 1080p and have to set some settings to low to get a stable 30fps. Also no instability during my sessions, all rock solid with no crashes.
Important to note that I highly, highly recommend those that play on weaker machines to enable upscaling features like AMD FSR and Nvidia DLSS. The game looks like vomit without those enabled and it’s just a slight hit on frame rates to get a bigger payoff of better visuals.
For those running unconventional display setups, do not despair. Horizon Forbidden West PC also supports aspect ratios like 21:9/32:9 ultra-wide and 48:9 triple monitor setups.
If you have the luxury of owning a beastly rig, then rightfully go ham and crank up all the graphics settings. Horizon Forbidden West will reward your spent cash with one of the most graphically competent games in recent years.
Personal Thoughts and Verdict
I had an enjoyable time playing Horizon Forbidden West on PC. I have not reached the point where I can access the Burning Shores DLC, but to my understanding it is more story and game content expansions rather than specific PC improvements that is being focused in this review.
The cyber-tribal aesthetic really appeals to me, especially seeing individual headdresses and the different tribes’ unique style. The post-post-apocalypse setting where our modern civilization is destroyed by rogue AI and elite capitalist serves as a forewarning of our hypothetical future, as our descendants lose the modern advancement and return to tribal groupings of the past.
Gameplay-wise, Horizon Forbidden West presents the tried and true formula of open-world action RPGs the likes of Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry. Taking cues from Meck’s review of the PlayStation version, Horizon Forbidden West is a buffet of delicious bits of the genre. Solid storytelling and gameplay mechanics, eye-candy visuals and contents up the wazoo.
But as fun as Horizon Forbidden West is, I cannot help but express the same-y sensation to other open world formula games (*ehem* Ubisoft). Enormous map dotted with POIs and busywork. New area? Great, here are 50 million optional quests and POIs. Have fun.
Okay I may be exaggerating but that is what I feel as a checklist gamer archetype. The urge to “just one more task!”, “just one more quest!” is unending, and the open-world fatigue sets in after some time. Best advice: play Horizon Forbidden West in short stints, a few hours per session over weeks or even months. Don’t go around consuming the whole buffet in 2 days, even a wagyu prime rib will bore you like canned beans.
Resist the temptations of gluttony, and you will be rewarded with a great exemplar of the open-world action genre and rightfully the poster game of PlayStation 5. Now that it is on Steam and EGS with all the graphical and technological bells and whistles expected of a PC release like DLSS and FSR, even more reason to pickup Horizon Forbidden West and tap your rig’s full potential.
Review copy provided by publisher.
Horizon Forbidden West (PC)
Horizon Forbidden West Complete Edition for PC is a great port that adds bells and whistles expected for a 2024 PC release like upscaling techs and widescreen support. First-class support for mouse and keyboard controls also shows extra effort and care for the target players, not just a parity 1:1 porting job.
- Presentation 10
- Gameplay 7.5
- Content 10
- Personal Enjoyment 8