Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered PC optimization guide

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered brings an updated rendition of the acclaimed 2017 open-world title from Guerilla Games to modern PC gamers. Built upon the tech driving 2022's Horizon Forbidden West, it is a big jump over the original's PS4 foundations, breathing new life into the sci-fi post-apocalyptic world that protagonist Aloy finds herself in.

This guide will help PC gamers discover a fine balance between performance and graphics, resulting in a gameplay experience that looks good and runs well.

Optimized settings for Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered on PC

Post-apocalyptic America has never looked better. (Image via Sony)

Since this remaster is built atop the foundations of the Horizon Forbidden West PC port, much of its technical makeup is the same. This setup aims for a 1080p 60 FPS profile with a custom graphics preset that sees most settings tuned around the High variant. Depending on your specs, some settings may need to be tuned a tad higher or lower.

Display:

Window mode: Exclusive Fullscreen
Display resolution: 1920x1080
Aspect ratio: Auto
Cinematic letterboxing: On
Refresh rate: Native to your display's refresh rate
VSync: Off
NVIDIA Reflex low latency: Off
Dynamic range: As per preference
Color blind mode: As per preference
Dynamic resolution scaling: Off
Anti-aliasing: TAA
Upscale method: Off
Upscale quantity: Off
DLSS frame generation: Off

Graphics:

Preset: Custom
Texture quality: High (Use Low for 4GB VRAM, Medium for 6GB VRAM, and Very High for more than 8GB VRAM)
Texture filtering: 16x Anisotropic
Shadow quality: Medium
Screen space shadows: On
Ambient occlusion: SSAO
Screen space reflections: High
Level of detail: Medium
Hair quality: High
Crowd quality: High
Terrain quality: High
Water quality: High
Clouds quality: High
Translucency quality: Default
Parallax occlusion mapping: Off
Field of view: As per preference
Depth of field: High
Bloom: On
Motion blur strength: As per preference
Sharpness: Default
Lens flares: On
Vignette: As per preference
Radial blur: On
Chromatic aberration: On

All in all, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered does a great job of bringing the visual style of the original in line with the enhancements of Horizon Forbidden West, which is evident with aspects such as lighting, object density, material quality, and more.

Also Read: All voice actors in Horizon Zero Dawn

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered PC system requirements

Alongside Forbidden West, this is one of the best-looking games this year. (Image via PlayStation Publishing)

Players looking forward to the remaster can check out the PC specs to get an idea of how the game will perform on their rig:

MINIMUM:

OS: Windows 10 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core i3-8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1300X
RAM: 16 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon RX 5500 XT
Storage: 135 GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD recommended

RECOMMENDED:

OS: Windows 10 64-bit
CPU: Intel Core i5-8600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
RAM: 16 GB
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700
Storage: 135 GB available space
Additional Notes: SSD recommended

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is available on PC and PS5 platforms.