Developer says it is working to fix Horizon Zero Dawn's many PC issues

[midian182]

Zero patch: Horizon Zero Dawn’s developers have responded to the flood of complaints aimed at the game since its PC release on Friday, August 7. Guerrilla Interactive released a statement confirming it is aware of the “crashes and other technical issues” and is investigating player reports as “our highest priority.”

Released back in 2017, PlayStation 4-exclusive Zero Dawn was one of the best reasons to buy a Sony console. The gorgeous open-world, graphics, and mechanical dino-creatures meant a PC version was coveted by computer owners for years, and they recently got their wish. Sadly, many have found that Zero Dawn falls into the ‘bad PC-port’ category.

It seems crashes are the main problem with Zero Dawn’s PC incarnation. Some Steam reviewers complain that the game freezes at a frustratingly regular rate—during gameplay, after boss battles, in cutscenes, etc. Optimization is also an issue, with stuttering and lag appearing constantly. Overall performance is said to be poor, with even the meatiest of PCs struggling to run it at 60fps, especially when resolutions are over 1080p and the graphical settings maxed. For a full overview of PC performance, Steve published his GPU Benchmark review this morning (watch below).

It’s somewhat surprising that Zero Dawn is facing all these problems. The devs knew this would be a big release, and it uses the same Decima engine as Death Stranding—a former PS4-exclusive that was praised for its recent PC port.

In a statement on Steam, Guerrilla Games wrote:

We have been monitoring all of our channels and are aware that some players have been experiencing crashes and other technical issues. Please know that we are investigating your reports as our highest priority.

We appreciate those who have already taken the time to report their issues on Steam, Reddit, or via our website. If you are still encountering crashes or bugs, please continue to use those spaces, or refer to our FAQ if you are unsure of how to proceed. Your reports are, and have already been, incredibly helpful for our teams.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to investigate issues; we will update you all as soon as we have more news.

Having played and enjoyed Zero Dawn on the PS4, this writer was looking forward to buying the PC version, but waiting for a patch that (hopefully) addresses its technical issues appears to be the best option.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/86304-dev-working-fix-horizon-zero-dawn-many-pc.html

 

[Burty117]

I'm not defending them in anyway, there's no excuses here, however, isn't this Guerrilla Games first PC game? They first created Killzone for the PS2 and they've been a PlayStation First Party Developer ever since.

So I'm not excusing them for a terrible port, but I do wonder why it's in such a bad state, the game was rock solid on PS4 and it's been out for 3 years etc....

 

[kimo1]

And the award goes to:

Walking? Crash.
Running? Crash.
Shooting? Crash.
Pause Menu? Crash.
Change settings? Crash.
Finished a tough fight and want to save before the next crash so you don't have to do it all over again? Nah. Crash.

 

[Puiu]

I'm not defending them in anyway, there's no excuses here, however, isn't this Guerrilla Games first PC game? They first created Killzone for the PS2 and they've been a PlayStation First Party Developer ever since.

So I'm not excusing them for a terrible port, but I do wonder why it's in such a bad state, the game was rock solid on PS4 and it's been out for 3 years etc....

Not really an excuse considering that Death Stranding is using the same game engine and it is fine on PC.

 

[DDG4005]

I'm glad that I didn't buy game when it was released last week. I want to catch it on sale, but it looks as though the developer has some work to do first.

 

[Burty117]

Not really an excuse considering that Death Stranding is using the same game engine and it is fine on PC.

I wasn't using it as an excuse or scape goat or anything, just thought it was worth mentioning. First time and all that.

They also built the Decima engine, giving them even less excuses for such a crap port.

The only thing I can think of is Sony gave them very little time and resources to release the port and completely skipped quality control.

 

[Nitrotoxin]

Played for 8 hours so far not a single bug or crash... Having a blast!

 

[Puiu]

I wasn't using it as an excuse or scape goat or anything, just thought it was worth mentioning. First time and all that.

They also built the Decima engine, giving them even less excuses for such a crap port.

The only thing I can think of is Sony gave them very little time and resources to release the port and completely skipped quality control.

Well, to be fair, the better excuse would be that it wasn't done in-house like Death Stranding. It's an outsourced port.

 

[R00sT3R]

I'm not defending them in anyway, there's no excuses here, however, isn't this Guerrilla Games first PC game?

Guerilla Games didn't port it to the PC, they farmed it out to a third party studio.

You'd think they'd be a bit more careful about the quality side of things when releasing stuff in their name.

 

[Lexii]

Played for 8 hours so far not a single bug or crash... Having a blast!

Same only I have 35 hours played according to steam with out a single issues. Playing at 1080 ultra. I don't know what everyone else is doing but the game is great for me.

A small clip from early on in the game

Running on and @ 1920x1080 Ultra Preset Ryzen 2600 @ 4.0Ghz Asus B350 Prime Plus AMD 5700 XT 16GB DDR4 @ 3000Mhz Windows 10 2004

 

[noel24]

Too bad Steve W. just tested it on PC. In few days He's gonna have to repeat it all over again...

 

[3volv3d]

Great game well worth £15.
But not worth £40 at all, and sure as hell not worth the bugginess. Most of the reviews were people raving about their expensive hardware, sucking hard at playing this game without crashing.

The optimization pants at the beginning seemed to take forever, and 20 mins into playing most people would crash.
Some people suggested quitting the game once the optimizing finished, then restarting the game. This for some people stopped the crash at 20 mins.

I would like to see how much prettier it looks on the PC, but again not at that price, it's honestly not worth it.

 

[Puiu]

Great game well worth £15.
But not worth £40 at all, and sure as hell not worth the bugginess. Most of the reviews were people raving about their expensive hardware, sucking hard at playing this game without crashing.

The optimization pants at the beginning seemed to take forever, and 20 mins into playing most people would crash.
Some people suggested quitting the game once the optimizing finished, then restarting the game. This for some people stopped the crash at 20 mins.

I would like to see how much prettier it looks on the PC, but again not at that price, it's honestly not worth it.

As long as they release a patch or 2 it will be worth the full price. But even as it is today it's worth more than that, unless what you dislike is the game itself and not the issues the port has.

 

[3volv3d]

As long as they release a patch or 2 it will be worth the full price. But even as it is today it's worth more than that, unless what you dislike is the game itself and not the issues the port has.

No No No. It will never be worth the full price, what the .... is with people happy to throw too much money at people. Like people said about console games possibly going up to £$70. £$50 is too much, hell £$30 for me is top end. The world is just constantly inflating, and it doesnt make any sense. People are not being paid more, bills are higher, crap like this for keeping us locked inside, should be cheaper, especially digital downloads.

 

[Ozmiz]

Is in my Steam wishlist. Glad I waited.

Now I'll take my time until the bus are ironed out

 

[CrayonMuncher]

Also several hours in at ultra with 3440 * 1440 Res and had no issues, once I went to the most up to date geforce game ready driver (was on a studio driver before which had mad texture popping)

 

[m4a4]

Getting tire of this "release first, fix later" attitude from big pubs...

 

[mrSister]

Looks like sale material. The game might be good, but hell I'm not supporting broken games.

 

[Jmax001]

This strikes me as really odd, considering the consoles are using x86 APUs for some time now. From what I read this was supposed to help smooth transition from console to PC ports. as the coding is very similar. Aside from the fact that they have to be more flexible to hardware options, I know optimizing for such can be a pain. I find it ironic they code these games using PCs, but have to port them back from console. I think it's much better use of time to code for both during production. Seems to take a lot of time to go back and optimize for PC and some have a huge problem getting it right.

If it doesn't launch on PC the same time as console, my interest in that game drops to zero by the time they get around to a PC port, and precisely because of things like this happening. A buggy mess should NEVER be released. SO many companies do this because they think they can just patch it. I don't play that game anymore. Companies release buggy garbage, I'm not buying it. And others should adopt this attitude as well in my opinion. It just breeds more of this kind of disrespect to the PC gaming community.

Console may dominate, but I gave up on them after the original Xbox. I had damn near every console system in existence from the Atari 2600 on up until the Xbox. I started gaming when I was 5, and now I'm 48 and still love gaming. My tastes in games have changed a lot since I was a kid, and one reason why I shifted away from Nintendo as they didn't change with the market, and moved over to Sony, and MS gaming consoles that released more mature and interesting games.

Sorry for going off on a tangent. I do that from time to time. Anyhow, I know why consoles do their super killer 'come to our side' exclusive games, after all, they are in the business of selling consoles and games, and they want as many people on their systems as possible. I see it as a detriment to PC gaming, but that's how business is, whether I like it or not.

 

[MaxSmarties]

PS4 porting are shitty as usual... hopefully PS5, basically being a PC, will be better.

 

[Gypsygib]

I'm just happy that a PS4 exclusive is on PC, tidy it up and keep them coming.

 

[Markoni35]

And the award goes to:
Walking? Crash.
Running? Crash.
Shooting? Crash.
Pause Menu? Crash.
Change settings? Crash.

But aside from those few issues, the game is working fine. Right?