This morning we woke up to the news that Sony would be working on a Horizon Zero Dawn multiplayer spin-off, which is understandable given the success of the Guerrilla franchise, but this information quickly went viral including plans to do also a PS5 remaster of the first title, like you can read here in VGC. In Xbox Generation we have not echoed this, obviously, although this first adventure has a version for PC, quite successful by the way.
But it generated a series of criticisms that we saw throughout the day, not only from users, but also from other journalists, influencers, insiders and other industry figures, but Mike’s tweet Rose, head of the No Plus Robots studio, creators of the hit Descenders. Included in Xbox Game Pass, the title has been particularly successful and recently received a free update for Xbox Series X|S and PS5. And it’s his anger, that it’s gratuitous.
Didn’t realize you could take a 5 year old game, port it to a new console, call it a “remaster” and charge $70 again
we stupidly put Descenders on next gen and made them free for people who bought last gen we must be *idiots*
— Mike Rose (@RaveofRavendale) October 3, 2022
Horizon Zero Dawn at the center of the controversy
Mike Rose’s comment on this is ironic, but very, very direct, without naming Sony:I didn’t know you could take a game from just 5 years ago, port it to a new console, call it a remaster, and charge $70 for it again. We were stupid putting Descenders in the next generation free for those who bought the previous one we must be idiots“. The recadito is incredible and it is perhaps the most literal of those we have seen today precisely because it comes from another developer, independent in this case, who sees how they are taking advantage of the market.
This news might not be so “noisy” if it weren’t for the precedent of The Last of Us Part One for PS5, a remake which, although it looks amazing, many consider it unnecessary to have the original game so new and fresh, originally released in 2013 on PS3 and remastered in 2014 on PS4. We’ll have to see if this new remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn finally gets produced, because if it does, it’s currently only 5 years away from the launch of the original.