Formally announced last month during the PlayStation State of Play presentation, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered has finally arrived on PS5 and PC. Developed by series developer Guerrilla Games alongside Nixxes Software, this upgrade of the acclaimed 2017 original is more than a simple coat of paint, and at least on the visual and accessibility side of things, feels like a meaningful upgrade. That said, it isn’t a whole lot MORE than that, so players looking for a package with more unique gameplay content to justify the expense, such as the additional game modes and behind-the-scenes features that The Last of Us Part II on PS5 received earlier this year, then you may be left wanting.

As in the original, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered follows the adventures of Aloy, a young bow-wielding outcast in a post-apocalyptic future America overrun with vicious mechanical wildlife. The remaster comes bundled with The Frozen Wilds, the original game’s rather robust expansion which added many new weapons and enemy types as well as other quality-of-life features. This new version of the game can be bought on its own, and those who already own the original version can pay a smaller amount to upgrade to the remaster. Fortunately, players with existing saves on their PS5 or PC have the option to import their saves to the new version of the game, allowing them to carry on their progress in Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered.

By starting a new file, however, many of this version of the game’s updated qualities become apparent from the opening cutscenes onwards. As per Guerrilla Games Studio Director Jan-Bart van Beek, over 10 hours of cutscenes have had their motion-capture re-recorded in an effort to bring the graphical quality up to the level of its 2022 sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, along with different camera angles being chosen for certain cutscenes to add dramatic emphasis.

The slightly uncanny valley-esque stiffness to the facial expressions of many characters at times in the original has been mostly averted in the remaster, with protagonist Aloy’s model naturally getting the most extra attention. Her skin and hair are more realistic, with small environmental details like snow sticking to her clothes and the way her face is illuminated during cutscenes receiving particular attention to stunning effect.

It isn’t just the human characters who have benefitted from the added power of modern technology: the environment of Horizon Zero Dawn’s post-apocalyptic setting now feels far more alive. There is overall just a lot more stuff onscreen, with a noticeable increase in vegetation and wildlife in the wilderness areas which really makes them feel much more visually interesting as you trek across the land. A particularly appreciated enhancement was the increased number of NPCs in settlements, making them feel much more lively and immersive. Meridian now actually feels like the bustling metropolis that it is supposed to be in-story, rather than a collection of oversized buildings where a bunch of guards and merchants hang out that it felt like in the original game.

Admittedly, a lot of these improvements are fairly difficult to spot if you aren’t actively comparing Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and the 2017 PS4 original side-by-side. I downloaded both versions of the game and frequently switched between them for the sake of comparison. Although the enhancements in the remastered version were certainly apparent when I was actively searching for them, the original game was exactly never a slouch in the visuals department and, occasionally weird lighting and facial expressions aside, still definitely holds up from a modern perspective. The visual upgrade on its own might not be worth the $15 AUD upgrade if you have already played the original.

What MIGHT be worth the price of admission, on the other hand, are the performance and gameplay-related enhancements. While both versions ran at a consistent 60 FPS on my PS5, with even the most chaotic robot dinosaur fights not impacting the frame rate, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered loads considerably faster. Both booting the game up initially and fast travelling is twice as fast in the remastered version, taking around 15 seconds to load a save file versus over half a minute for the PS4 version, even running on my PS5 console.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered also benefits from the PS5 DualSense controller’s many bells and whistles. The controller’s adaptive triggers felt tailor-made for the game, with the subtle resistance on the trigger as you draw Aloy’s bow really adding a tactile sense of immersion during combat. The haptic feedback also added subtle variations to many of the rumble features, adding a notable additional oomph to the impact of Aloy’s spear on a foe or when she rappels down from a vantage point.

Admittedly, there are some accessibility features whose absence was felt. Compared to many other games, there were still some tools that could have been added, like a screen reader or colour-blind mode for players with visual impairments. Still, what we have here is still a decent step forward and will make Horizon Zero Dawn a lot more approachable for a large number of gamers.

That said, as good as all of this is, it could certainly be better. As earlier stated, Horizon Zero Dawn was a handsome-enough game back in 2017. The visual enhancements and accessibility features are nice to have, but not so substantial that they would necessarily warrant a replay or additional purchase for many players. The Last of Us Part II received a whole new game mode, behind-the-scenes developer commentary and even scrapped “lost levels” (giving further insight into not only the game’s characters, but its development process) in its PS5 remaster. Accordingly, it gives some insight into what Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered could have been, especially after 7 years since its initial release.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is more along the lines of The Last of Us Part I when it was released on PS5 in 2022, itself a remaster of a PS4 game which was a remaster of a PS3 game, and even that received a PS5-exclusive Speedrun gameplay mode. That is to say, there are a lot of mostly cosmetic features here that are pleasant to have in this remastered package. However, they enhance a game that was already great and, if you already own Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition on PS4, this new version is still fundamentally the same gameplay experience as what you already have, accessibility features aside. In addition, many of the gameplay bugbears of the original game, like Aloy’s oddly floaty melee attack which causes her to zoom across the battlefield to her target or the frustratingly limited inventory space in the early game, remain, which may bother those hoping for more gameplay enhancements this time around.