Horizon Forbidden West on PS5 Pro has "the best image quality I've seen in a console game," tech analyst says, and feels like "playing on a high-end PC"

Horizon Zero Dawn
(Image credit: Guerrilla Games)

The PS5 Pro launches today, and while you may have balked at the steep price tag, a Digital Foundry analyst says it gives Horizon Forbidden West "the best image quality I've seen in a console game."

At a staggering £699.99, the PS5 Pro is an expensive piece of kit, especially since it doesn't come with a disc drive. If you want to play your physical games, you'll need to shell out an additional £99.99 for an attachable one. That being said, if you have the right setup, like a 4K TV, the visuals are so good that playing Horizon Forbidden West feels like "playing on a high-end PC," according to Digital Foundry's John Linneman.

I haven't gotten around to playing Forbidden West yet, but I thought the original Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the most gorgeous games I'd ever seen, even on the PS4. Linneman says of the Forbidden West upgrade, "When you consider the density of the visuals, how much detail is in them, the way it resolves that detail and presents it is so clean and attractive that it's honestly mind-boggling."

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There's a lot going on in the Horizon games: dense, lush foliage, water, sunlight reflecting off of robot dinosaurs and their metallic surfaces, and Aloy's hair swaying. Linnerman explains, "There's so much granular detail in the distance. The grass, the rocks, everything it does. The game is very visually busy, and this just does it justice in a way that the original modes did not."

Amazingly, there's still a quality mode option for the game, and Linnerman says, "It is slightly better, I guess, but I really don't think it's necessary." So, if you do get a PS5 Pro you can have both high fps and stunning visuals to admire while you play.

If you want to know more about the console, check out our PS5 Pro review, which also contains links to the best deals for it. Or read everything we know about the PS5 Pro if you just want to learn about the specs.

Issy van der Velde
Contributor

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the Univesity of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.