The Horizon Forbidden West DLC is exclusive to PS5 because of the clouds

Horizon forbidden west was cross-gen at release, so it was perhaps surprising when Sony announced that the story DLC Burning Shores would be exclusive to PlayStation 5. The publisher finally provided fans with some answers to the PlayStation Blog why: The last-gen console wouldn’t be able to handle all those fancy clouds.

The Horizon Zero Dawn Developers realized that the PlayStation 4’s technology would not be able to meet their lofty cloud ambitions. That was fine at the time, but had to be expanded for the sequel Horizon forbidden west.

Just before the end Forbidden West, players were given a mount that allowed them to fly in the air, and the changes made by the developers were enough to allow players to fly through misty clouds at low altitude, as they explain in the blog post. However, Burning Shores is being designed with an emphasis on sky exploration, so more progress had to be made. This change would include “voxel” technology and a lot more power to accommodate the massive amounts of data required to render those glorious clouds. in summary, Burning Shores Clouds needed the beefy PS5.

i feel torn Do clouds really matter enough to keep a lot of people locked out of a big blockbuster DLC? Normally I’d say no right away, but I loved the clouds in it Forbidden West. I took stunningly beautiful photos that I didn’t know were possible on a gaming console. If these clouds can look even better I’m excited to see them on my PS5 as I explore them as parts of the environment.

But look: Guerrilla is a first-party studio, and Burning Shores is a full campaign DLC. If Sony wanted them to create a PS4 port, they could eat up the cost and offer players crappy or fewer clouds. That feels like a more conscious push for players to get into the PS5 ecosystem as soon as possible. That can’t happen when all the hottest games are available for PS4 at the same time. Next-gen consoles are now easier to come by, but that doesn’t mean every household has to switch couches to buy one.

Burning Shores will be available on PlayStation 5 on April 19th.