You are starting to know the song: since we are dealing with a port, of a major PS4 title moreover, we are not going to spend hours detailing the adventure itself. If you want to know more about Aloy's skills, the loot system or the crafting recipes, the test carried out by Laurely three years ago is still available. We will content ourselves here with summarizing the quintessence of Horizon Zero Dawn, just to refresh the memory of the bedridden or to enlighten newcomers. The post-apocalyptic universe of the game opposes primitive tribes armed mainly with bows and spears to robotic machines taking the form of more or less real animals, the most notable of these mechanical creatures being certainly those based on dinosaurs. This universe rarely seen elsewhere makes it possible to compensate for the classicism of the gameplay, which incorporates all the codes usually associated with open worlds. Crafting, climbing cliffs, skill trees, stealth eliminations, bandit camps to clear, hunting challenges and collectibles: it feels like a Ubisoft game at times. Moreover, it should be noted that climbing on a Great-neck (a gigantic dino-robot with a flat head) makes it possible to reveal the surroundings on the map, like the famous towers of Assassin's Creed or Far Cry. Despite these somewhat too obvious borrowings, the game remains interesting from start to finish. Even the side quests are worth checking out, as they are scripted enough to keep the player on their toes. And of course they extend the lifespan, which can vary between twenty and forty hours depending on how you play. Finally that, it is without counting the presence of the extension The Frozen Wilds, which is provided automatically in this Complete Edition. This content gives access to a new region, a new story, as well as additional characters, enemies, weapons and outfits, for an additional lifespan of a good ten hours.
WHAT'S NEW ON THE HORIZON?
In order to be completely exhaustive, the PC version also comes with a digital artbook (horizontal format, 52 pages) and several in-game bonus outfits and weapons. It's always good to take. But the most important thing is of course the technical and visual progress of this version, which no longer really knows any limits in terms of resolution (including ultrawide for owners of such screens) or framerate. Playing in native 4K and in sixty frames per second is now possible, as long as you have the right configuration. The game instantly becomes more beautiful and more enjoyable to play. To go even further, the developers announce that they have improved the dynamic foliage system and the reflections on the water. As for the more general options (antialiasing, ambient occlusion, shadows, textures, etc.), we see that the "original" mode (that of the PlayStation version therefore) corresponds to the average settings, whereas it is now possible to push them two notches above (high and ultra). The combination of these technical improvements and the still successful art direction results in a result more admirable than ever.
Incidentally, we will note that Aloy's face once again seems a little too smooth, even plastic, as was already the case on PS4. A problem all the more astonishing that the faces of certain secondary interlocutors are much more successful. In the radius of defects that are not improved by this port, we can also mention the disappointing French version, which unfortunately has not changed a tone. To tell the truth, we suspected that it would be so. History of putting pecists in the pocket, this Complete Edition preferred to bet on the presence of a benchmark tool allowing to check the fluidity of the game, and an adjustment of the field of vision (Field of View), that the 'you can go from 70 to 100. This option is particularly welcome for a game that tends to bring the heroine's camera a little too close, especially during the infiltration and use of focus sentences. As far as controls go, the game is set up for PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam controllers out of the box, and also supports keyboard and mouse play. Even if we are dealing with a third person view designed for the console, this last option is really to be taken into consideration because it greatly facilitates bow aiming. To the point that we can perfectly ignore the skill of slowing down time.
CAN DO BETTER...
Let's summarize: the game is excellent at the base, and it comes to us in an "ultimate" version, which combines bonus content, graphic improvements and PC options that go well. Everything is for the best in the best of all worlds, right? Nay my poor sir because, for now, this PC version still seems extremely capricious. Already, the first launch is accompanied by a loading screen that lasts… a good twenty minutes! It is strongly assumed that this is a shader calculation phase, but it would have been preferable to display at least an explanatory message to make the player wait rather than a screen empty of any information. But let's move on, because we only have to endure this ordeal once, the following launches being carried out normally. The real problem is elsewhere: tested on two different machines, our version was systematically unstable. We are talking here about big crashes that try, with immediate return to the Windows desktop and DirectX 12 error message... every fifteen minutes! Far too frequent to be honest, these crashes seem to be lessened by locking the framerate at thirty frames per second. In any case, it is the only solution we have found to go from four crashes per hour to one crash every two hours. The final grade does not take this problem into account, as it is typically a "double or nothing" situation. Either you are affected and the game does not even deserve the average (since it can then be considered almost unplayable), or you are not affected and the adventure is really worth the detour. The best is still to wait a few days or a few weeks, just to check the extent of the problem on the forums and, if necessary, to obtain a saving patch. After three and a half years of waiting to see the game arrive on PC, we can do that little extra effort!
