The situation of the PS5 compared to its predecessor is similar to what the DVD had with the Blu Ray in its day. Only with video games instead of movies. Titles that were released years ago are released with higher quality than the original release and revamped items again at full price or even more expensive than before. Is there any rationale for this policy?
Why is SONY reissuing Horizon Zero Dawn on PS5?
We have to clarify, first of all, that this is not confirmed news from the folks at PlayStation. However, it is surprising that the console has backwards compatibility that some PS4 classics are re-released on PS5 as if it were a new product. Examples are not rare, 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 which 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 the computer hardware. Let’s not forget that the hardware of a console is fixed over time and over the years its relative power decreases. It is therefore expected that the PC version will take full advantage of this, 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 which came out a few years ago and since the launch of God of War: Ragnarok is approaching console, I wouldn’t 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 allows our Xbox model to 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, some graphical features are unlocked through a configuration file. In this way, it is possible to make much better use of the power of the most technically advanced system.
And it’s true that in the case of SONY, in many cases a patch that would unlock things like frame rate, resolution or the quality of certain visual effects would suffice. The problem arises when to make the PC version of the game you had to redo all the graphic code of the game and you find that you have to do some work adapting to the new system and see that things work. With this, we’re not justifying SONY’s relaunch policy, we’re just explaining that it’s not something as simple as changing four things.
Another point that is not considered are improvements to game assets, i.e. things like textures, audio tracks, character modeling. As with movies, in many cases enhancements and even substitutions are made for new, higher quality material that has had hours of work behind it by artists and programmers. In any case, if you don’t have the PS4 version of the game, for us and for simple quality, it is better that you go for the PS5 version if you have the console.
