'Horizon Forbidden West' Loads So Fast On PS5 The Devs Had To Make It Slower

How are we all finding Horizon Forbidden West so far, then? The long awaited sequel to Zero Dawn finally arrived on PS4 and PS5 yesterday, and in our review, we described it as “a clear step up from the first game”, complete with “an extremely compelling story, and a ton of content to keep you busy.” 

It goes without saying that obviously, the game is definitely best played on the PS5 rather than its predecessor (although that said, it still looks pretty great on PS4, too). It turns out though that the game runs so well on the new-gen console that the devs literally had to put measures in place to slow it down a bit.

While you're here, be sure to check out some gameplay footage of Forbidden West below.

In an interview with Engadget, game director Mathijs de Jonge explained that the loading screens were so fast, that players wouldn’t be able to read the hints on them if they were left as they were: “In Horizon Zero Dawn, we called it fast travel, but it could take maybe a minute to actually load,” he said. “With the PS5, it’s maybe four or five seconds, it loads so quickly that players can’t even read the hints. We had to add a very simple feature where it hangs on the loading screen for enough time so you can actually read at least one hint while it loads.” 

If you’re not personally bothered about the hints though, fear not - you can still fly through the loading screens at full speed by mashing X, or bypass the change completely by turning it off in the game’s settings.

In case you missed it, Sony are actually running a really neat initiative at the moment, where for every player who unlocks the “Reached the Daunt” trophy in Forbidden West, they’re going to donate one tree to a forest restoration project. How cool is that? The trophy is apparently unlocked automatically quite early on in the game’s story, so it shouldn’t be too hard for people to achieve. Who knew playing video games could save the planet?