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When the first PlayStation 4 Pro leaks appeared, many were concerned about what the arrival of the new hardware would mean for the platform as a whole. Would developers target one system over the other? Would the older hardware get left behind? Horizon Zero Dawn is a highly important title - developer Guerrilla Games has a reputation for remarkable technical innovation and accomplishment. The team would be expected to deliver a title that showcases the power of PS4 Pro, while at the same time demonstrating that there's plenty of life in base hardware. Based on a week with the game, the developer has delivered on both counts. Horizon is a stunning technical showcase, no matter which iteration of PlayStation hardware you own.If we look back at the reveal of PS4 Pro at last September's PlayStation Meeting, we were promised a system that delivers enhanced graphics, higher performance and a 4K presentation. Back then, the demo we saw certainly delivered on the latter, at least. Horizon's implementation of checkerboard 4K was simply stunning - perhaps a touch softer than native rendering, but beautiful nonetheless. Alongside Sony Bend's Days Gone, it was the showcase for the Pro's 4K capabilities. However, the demo was clearly early - as borne out by a work-in-progress performance analysis, which showed frequent frame-rate drops beneath the target 30fps.
The final game sees the vast majority of these issues resolved, with the vast majority of gameplay operating at a locked, properly frame-paced 30fps. It's the scalability of the Decima engine between PS4 and PS4 Pro that proves fascinating though - both versions still exhibit very minor instances of dropped frames (barely noticeable for the most part and masked by motion blur when they do appear) and these very minor drops are essentially mirrored between both platforms, with a very small improvement on PS4 Pro. It seems that extensive particle work and alpha effects cause the drops - as infrequent as they are.
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