Horizon Forbidden West’s upcoming Burning Shores DLC leaves PS4 behind to help maximize PS5’s capabilities, director says

Aloy’s journey is set to continue in Burning Shores, an expansion to Horizon Forbidden West, sending the warrior even further West than before.

This time, Aloy’s made it all the way out to the ruins of Los Angeles, as evidenced by the remnants of the Hollywood sign being destroyed in the announcement trailer for the DLC, which debuted in December.

An exciting prospect for some and disappointing to many others, though, is that the DLC is leaving the PS4 behind and only releasing on PS5. This has the development team at Guerrilla Games very excited about what the expansion content will look like.

“One of our key priorities with Horizon games is to add a ton of detail and richness to our environments,” game director Mathijs de Jonge told the PlayStation Blog. “On Horizon Forbidden West, everything we added or increased was something we’d need to have a plan around how to optimize for PS4 as well.”

Having to develop a game concurrently for the PS5 and aging PS4 has its drawbacks, as any developer would admit. But now, Burning Shores is set to excel without old hardware holding it back, according to de Jonge.

“On Burning Shores, since we can just focus on PS5, we’ve been able to charge forward and we’re really excited about what we’ve been able to pull off in creating this stunning post-post-apocalyptic version of Los Angeles,” de Jonge said.

One of the biggest additions to Horizon Forbidden West from the original game was the ability to fly on aerial machines, exploring the massive open world. The PS5’s SSD, says de Jonge, is integral in letting this work.

“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 said. “One of the settlements is situated in and around those detailed ruins, and we were able to squeeze a lot of activity in there. Another notable one is a particular battle scene that requires a LOT of memory and processing power! To achieve this grand vision both technically and creatively, we definitely were thankful for the many advantages that the PS5 hardware brings.”

While PS4 players of Horizon will undoubtedly be disappointed, it looks like PS5 players have reason to be excited for the DLC coming to one of 2022’s best games.

Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores releases only on PS5 on April 19.