The Digital Foundry has released a video crowning the best game graphics for the year 2022. Horizon Forbidden West for the PS4 and PS5 bagged the first spot, followed by the Callisto Protocol and Portal RTX in the second and third spot respectively. Horizon Forbidden West was praised for its character rendering quality and detailed environment.
Compared to the first game Horizon Zero Dawn, there were plenty of improvements in Horizon Forbidden West that made the game visually appealing. The main criteria that were touched upon were the fluidity of movement and animation of the characters. Unlike the first game, Horizon Forbidden West offered more interactive body language and facial features, which gave players a lifelike and engaging character interaction. It wasn’t only their facial and body animations, but also the clothes and accessories worn contoured with the character.
Next, the topic of environmental rendering was also raised. The world of Horizon Forbidden West has been scaled effectively for the PS4 and PS5, in terms of graininess, smoothness, and lighting. Also, the video explained how the rendering of the grass, water, sky, sand, and snow, as well as additional traits for these environments, gave it a lifelike appearance. The grass would leave trails whenever a character or animal stepped on it, and you could also zoom into the wildflowers to see the detailing. The water rendering was immaculate, where there was calculated mapping for the various water bodies present in the game. Also, the waves have their pre-calculated animation as well. The sky was also scaled up to fit with the PS5.
The Digital Foundry team also praised the quick response of the Guerrilla Games when met with complaints from the players regarding image quality, and noted that the change in their entire AAA made the game a lot better.
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