Horizon Forbidden West’s Burning Shores DLC looks set to expand upon the scale of the core game's environments and action.
Burning Shores is the first major expansion to Horizon Forbidden West, but unlike the main game, it’ll be exclusively available to PS5 owners. Those who played Forbidden West on PS4 will need to upgrade their console (or borrow a friend’s) if they want to catch the next chapter of Aloy’s journey.
In a new PlayStation Blog post, game director Mathijs de Jonge discussed the reasons for the shift and exactly what swapping to a PS5-only release has let them achieve in Burning Shores.
Many of the advantages discussed are already present in the PS5 version of Forbidden West, including zippy load times, 60fps support, and a wealth of visual detail on screen. According to de Jonge, though, shifting away from the last gen will enable Aloy to explore even more complex environments in Burning Shores.
“The cityscape ruins of LA and its surroundings are highly detailed and require a lot of processing power as well as fast streaming technology to run properly; especially when the player is flying over the lands and can see a lot at once,” de Jonge says. “One of the settlements is situated in and around those detailed ruins, and we were able to squeeze a lot of activity in there.”
Perhaps more exciting, however, is the ability to introduce more involved action sequences into the game. The tail end of Forbidden West’s story already includes some fairly grand battles in which Aloy finds herself caught, but Burning Shores promises to outdo them.
“Another notable one is a particular battle scene that requires a LOT of memory and processing power!” says de Jonge. “To achieve this grand vision both technically and creatively, we definitely were thankful for the many advantages that the PS5 hardware brings.”
With the announcement trailer teasing the reawakening of a Horus machine, there’s plenty of room for scale and action when Burning Shores releases April 19.
