Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered's Failure Could Reshape PlayStation's Future

How Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered affects Sony.

[Knightofelemia]

It was a remaster nobody asked for. The game isn't old enough to warrant a remaster. If Sony wants to remaster games then give me the Resistance trilogy, Killzone, Wild Arms, hell if Sony can wrangle it the Xenosaga trilogy.

[solideagle]

isn't XenoSaga owned by Square?

[CrimsonWing69]

No

[Redgrave]

Namco, and they did a survey of interest once but apparently they weren't happy with numbers and declined to move forward with it.

Yet, they will release Tales of Symphonia and Graces again, both of which received remasters already.

[Cacabunga]

The milking Sony and Herman Hulst are doing to this franchise made me hate it and hate seeing it..
zero dawn remastered? Nobody asked for it.
Lego Horizon? Nobody asked for it..

They are making games for themselves and not for the fans.

Fans want a Killzone 2 remake.. and personally warzone mode PSVR2 playable.

[Exvalos]

Nope, the xeno ownership is all over the place. Its why Xenogears is dead and will unfortunately never see the light of day again

[_SilverHawk_]

The Horizon franchise is one of sony playstations most successful ip with about 40 million copies sold in all which took about 7 years. Guerilla games other franchise which is killzone took 18 years to sell about 8 million copies. Horizon 3 is in development, a television series is supposed to be made and a gaas Horizon game is coming. Im not sure why some would like sony to abandon such a successful game and think it's bad to remaster a 7 year old game.

[neomahi]

No, Namco owns it

[KyRo]

@Silverhawk, HFW was also bundled with every PS5 for that holiday season massively inflating it's numbers. Horizon has its fans but to me, its Sonys Assassins Creed. Outside of the metal dinosaurs, it's a pretty standard open world game that's been done to death.

[Hofstaderman]

All of the above, please.

[solideagle]

according to Google "The Xenosaga series is owned by Bandai Namco Entertainment", ok I am super confused lol

[neomahi]

Sqaresoft developed Xenogears but then the game went to its devs whose name slips my mind at present, but are also know for F.E.A.R. and Condemned: Criminal Origins (yeah, really weird). Google it, it's a lot easier to find and better explained

[DarXyde]

I don't even think age is exactly the issue. But the remaster should have very clear benefits. GTA V and The Last of Us Remastered did well, from what I've gathered. In GTA V's case, they added a first person mode which really feels different and the graphics are notably better. The Last of Us ran at 60fps remastered and made good use of the light bar and limited HUDs for immersion.

Those are real benefits. Even a Bloodborne remaster would be outstanding, especially when the original is locked at 30fps.

[Petebloodyonion]

XenoGears is owned by Square
XenoSaga (spiritual successor) is owned by Bandai Namco
XenoBlade is owned by Nintendo

[derek]

If you don't want it don't buy it. Don't know why you guys have a problem with things merely existing.

[RedDevils]

Because they could spend that resources and time on something that the fans wants perhaps?

[FinalFantasyFanatic]

I really can't see who would buy the HZD remaster, the original was only last gen and most of us still own a copy of the game. I'm not surprised that the remastered version did not do well, give me sequels or remaster/remakes of much older games, especially from the PS1/PS2 generation, I would fork out for those, not last gen games I already own.

[jwillj2k4]

They are trying to maximize profits.

Fully support backwards compatibility with new games being made for both ps4 and ps5.

“Believing in generations” and wanting you to pay for remasters of games that dont need it.

@Cacabunga said it best they are literally in a bubble making games for themselves. They need to clean the slate and remember how they got in this position in the first place. It wasnt by regurgitating up and eating sloppy seconds topped with butter and sugar.

[Knushwood Butt]

Someone on my friend list is playing it.

[raWfodog]

“I really can't see who would buy the HZD remaster…”

I can definitely see first-timers buying a remaster over an original title. The first time that I ever played TLOU on PS4 was the remastered version.

[himdeel]

Cough-Bloodborne

[gammaray13]

have you tried it yet turbo, coz it looks and plays amazing and for $10 its hardly worth sooking about

[C-H-E-F]

Socom, the face they spent all that on concord and they have Socom literally will be the best live service game 🤦🏾‍♂️

[lukasmain]

It's not a failure. They wanted to graphically bring it up to the level of Part 2. It sets it up for he future as well. This opinion piece's premise is stupid.

[anast]

I agree here.

[thorstein]

And I still don't understand why journos here get to post lies as "opinions." Lies are not opinions.

And once again the only metric is "SteamDB" numbers.

[refocusedman]

so they don't make games to sell said games and make a profit?

[jwillj2k4]

Please elaborate, what “future” does a remaster of an already polished and playable game on current consoles create? It is not a remake, nothing but the shinyness of the rocks, better effects and newer assets have changed. The story remains the same.

[__y2jb]

The Sony bias is strong with upvotes for this word salad.

[lukasmain]

Piss off you braindead moron. It was obvious that whoever wanted to play this has already done so. Sony knew they weren't going to make major sales. They wanted the game to be graphically up to the level of the sequel and that will be the bass quality going forward into the future. Similar to how they updated The Last OF Us part 1.

[__y2jb]

Would you like some dressing on your word salad?

[andy85]

Honestly don't mind remasters when they don't take up development time from new projects

[VersusDMC]

Well this was developed by Nixxes so it just took up development time from another PC port. No real loss. And it gave Nixxes some PS5 development practice that hopefully leads to them making a remake on PS5 like bluepoint.

[refocusedman]

that's expensive practice

[andy85]

Yep exactly this

[mkis007]

With all the rumored Horizon spin offs in development, I'd say this is strategically set up for the future.

[Zenzuu]

Sony has so many great dominant IP's that they can bring back, such as Infamous, Socom, Ape Escape, Jak & Daxter, Siren, Sly Cooper, Killzone, Twisted Metal, Little Big Planet, Gravity Rushy, Motorstorm, Wild Arms, Resistance, Wipeout, Alundra, Colony Wars, Cool Boarders, Knack, Syphon Filter, Dark Cloud, Omega Boost, The Legend of Dragoon, G-Police, The Getaway and so on. Many of these games is what defines Playstation and sets them apart in previous generations.

They could also work with third parties developers to bring these franchises back like Parasite Eve, Dino Crisis, Ridge Racer, SSX, Tenchu, Jade Cocoon, Xenogears, Xenosaga, Nightmare Creatures, Vagrant Story, Shadow Hearts, Driver, Breath of Fire, Tomba, Legend of Legaia, Okami..etc

[goken]

Good list.

Though i Can’t believe you included knack on this list… i want Arc the Lad and Dark Cloud 😀

PS. Btw Tenchu is owned by one of Kodokawa’s gaming studios

[gleepot]

Didn't horizon sell more than all of those

[lucasnooker]

Not that surprising. It was a dumb decision. My guess is Hellman hurst had his say in it as it’s his companies game lol

[Relientk77]

Meanwhile, there are tons of games on PS1 and PS2 I'd love remasters or remakes for, but nahhhh that makes too much sense. Let's remaster PS4 games that dont need it.

[Hedstrom]

Isnt it a rumor of a Horizon with multiplayer components in the works?
This together with Lego Horizon makes me think that Sony wanna try to push the franchise further. Wouldnt be surprised if there will also come a Movie or tv show in the making to.

But thats just my guess!

[Redemption-64]

The stupidity of post like these deserves an award.

[Cacabunga]

Here is your reward: 💩

[Redemption-64]

Stupidity and ignorance all in one. How fun

[Cacabunga]

Here is your second award 💩💩

[rippermcrip]

Unless you know how much money they spent doing this update, you can't call it a failure.

This is exactly what it is, a $10 upgrade for enthusiasts. I had no interest in playing it again. But my 14 year old wanted it and he re-Platinumed the game.

Buy it or don't. Sony didn't spend a shit ton of money on it.

[goken]

My guess would be the same (sony didn’t spend a shit ton money on horizon ZD remaster). But then you wouldn’t think an arena shooter (concord) would cost upwards of $200m and over 5 years to make. So you never know.

[derek]

Failure becuase of a uselss pc metric? How much was the game realistically suppose to sell, get real. Sony needs to reconsider this pc release nonsense i don't think the juice is worth the squeeze. Now you got all these pc dummies who've turned playstation in to this sort of villan corporation. Look at the reaction to the possible Kodakawa purchase by this same community, pretending as if playstation and From haven't had a history of working together from playstation inception.

[mkis007]

You do not have any data to lead with such a claim.

[RhinoGamer88]

Lots of Sony leadership fails recently...with no consequences to the leadership. I want that gig.

[Firebird360]

How's it a failure? I'm betting it took minimal dev resources to do. So any sales it has are a positive.
Stop with these doom n gloom tag lines.

[shaenoide]

Nobody cares about HZD. It was fun the first time with the first episode but...meh.

Sony didn't have anything to show in the first place in 2024. These remastered served their purpose by making as much money as possible with minimum effort.

[Gregero]

I liked Zero Dawn - A LOT. I'm sure I'll play it again some day, and when I do, it will be this remastered version for 10 bucks more but there's no way I'm gonna rush back to it right this minute to play it in such glory. I sure am curious to see it again though.

[Asterphoenix]

Even knowing the failure they'll still try to milk this overrated franchise.

I'd take some PS3 remaster since PSN it's streamed.Entries that haven't been released on PS4 already such as Folklore. If Namco doesn't think they have the demand for Xenosaga they can give it to Sony to port like Square did with Valkyrie Profile Lenneth on PS4/PS5.

[PRIMORDUS]

Well it was not needed, the dumbasses who pushed for it should be demoted.

[Miacosa]

Doesn't really hurt them given the amount of money it costs to produce was nominal. Also, not to mention that most of the time these types of ports are used as training avenues for new and junior members of the dev team.

[neomahi]

Good! PlayStation keeps giving us crap we never wanted. It's been consistently that way since Jim Ryan took over, like they're trying to sabotage everything Kaz Harai, Jack Tretton, and Andrew House has to work so hard to build. It's infuriating. Herman Hulst did great managing Guerilla, we got good Killzone games that utilized new tech and he brought Kojima into the fold. However, since he took over running PlayStation, it's a job he's not suited for. He actually let Kojima walk off providing no incentive as to why Kojima Productions would want to stay and a series of other horrendous disasters. PlayStation somehow thinks they need to follow Xbox when they were doing just fine and Xbox is the one under threat. HOW MANY TIMES DO WE NEED TO SAY IT!?? NINTENDO IS STILL ENTIRELY EXCLUSIVE TO THEIR OWN PLATFORM! WHY IS PLAYSTATION FREAKING OUT!?! They can remain completely exclusive to their hardware but they can't resist porting to PC and it's crushing their credibility and their confidence that doesn't look good to fans. It's hurting their console sales, which by the way, an idiot could tell Nintendo are delaying their Switch 2 reveal to boost sales. Once they announce the Switch 2, it'll halt Switch sales. Nintendo wants to topple the PS2 overall sales so Nintendo can claim console king thinking Sony will never have the success of the PS2 power again, because Sony releases their console, and then a Pro console because they panic, when their development studios aren't even working.

PLAYSTATION!!!! LISTEN TO YOUR FANS! THATS WHAT THEY DID WITH PS4, AND LOOK HOW IT DID!!!!! DONT GIVE IS REMASTERS TO PAD YOUR SALES! WE DONT WANT GAMES AS A SERVICE GAMES! STOP JADE RAYMOND BEFORE SHE COMMITS CAREER SUICIDE!

GET RID OF HULST! HES KILLING THE BRAND FOLLOWING JIM RYANS BAD EXAMPLE WHO NEVER SHOULDVE BEEN PUT THERE ANYWAY, EUROS ARENT VERY GOOD BUSINESSMEN, STOP THE BLEEDING BEFORE IT TURNS INTO A LIMB REMOVING SITUATION!

[X-23]

I don't know why they thought remastering this game so soon was paramount, especially when they'd just released the sequel to said game: which is superior in every way, not very long ago.
There are way too many PlayStation titles that their audience would rather see Remastered.

[Knushwood Butt]

Driveclub Remastered

[Soy]

Horizon was my favorite game of the PS4/XB1 generation, and I loved the sequel as well, but I had no desire for an update or a Lego game. Share the love, Sony. And stop updating games that are only 3-5 years old.

[Yi-Long]

I have no idea if this ‘failed’ or not. Original already looked good, and Remaster looks amazing.

I think Sony’s current greed is simply turning a lot of people off, to the point where their games are even still too expensive when they’re supposedly on sale.

I think I only have 2 1st party PS5 exclusives, and one of them (Horizon FW) was bundled in with the PS5 when those consoles were very difficult to find in stores. The only other PS5 game was Ratchet & Clank, picked up for 20-25 bucks.

I honestly lost most, if not all interest in their 1st party announcements, cause I know they’ll be overpriced and will rarely, if ever, go on sale, and even on sale they won’t be very tempting.

Only 1st party PS5 exclusive I’m currently excited about, is Ghost of Yotei. But not when it’s gonna be priced at 80 euro, so it will be years before I’ll play it.