The PlayStation 5 generation began in late 2020. Today, over 2 years later, there are still AAA video games debuting for both next-gen hardware and the PS4. Does cross-generational development affect the final result? Certainly, working on a project that will debut on two platforms with different capabilities is a challenge.
Horizon Forbidden West, the sequel to the acclaimed Horizon Zero Dawn, was released in early 2022. Like many of Sony's first-party titles, it was released for both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. The last-gen version has lower resolution, but it's still a well-rounded product.
That being said, developing two versions was a very complicated task. In fact, the team behind the project considered the possibility of removing one of the features that enrich the open-world exploration: flight.
The development of Horizon Forbidden West proved to be quite a challenge
During a recent talk at the Develop: Brighton convention, Jan-Bart van Beek, director at Guerrilla Games, confirmed that the less powerful hardware of the PlayStation 4 raised doubts about implementing the flight mechanic.
"Until the last moment, we didn't know if we could support flight on the PlayStation 4. We said to ourselves, 'Do we have to cut this feature from the game? That's going to be a disaster.' But we managed to make it work," said Jan-Bart van Beek during the conference.
Angie Smets, former studio director and current head of development strategy at PlayStation Studios, stated that Horizon Forbidden West is the first cross-generational game that Guerrilla Games has worked on. Therefore, working on both the PS4 and PS5 versions simultaneously was a challenge.
"In the first part of the project, it was really hard to focus on the PS5 and push the quality bar there. And in the second half, it was really hard to get the PS4 up to speed," said Angie Smets.
"We raised the quality bar because we knew it had to look much better than other PS4 games, but we also wanted it to look significantly better on PS5. We wanted that with every screenshot of Horizon, you could see the difference (...) The problem was that we made a PS4 game that I'm very proud of, but then we created the PS5 game, which is much better, and a lot of people said, 'Actually, I want to play it on PS5, and I'll wait until the console is available,'" added technical director Van der Leeuw.
In the end, it seems that the technical limitations of the PS4 overwhelmed Guerrilla Games. This is evident because the expansion Burning Shores only arrived on Sony's next-gen console.
But tell us, do you think the last-gen version is significantly inferior? Do you believe developers should focus solely on the PlayStation 5? Let us know in the comments.
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