Commentary from the artists and designers is sparse. Anyway, the main highlight of the book is the art. How I wish there are more books on the production of games instead of just artbooks. Immerse yourself in this post-post-apocalyptic world with never-seen-before detail–from the broad sweeping panoramic views of the West to minute intricacies of tribal artifacts that furnish the game’s lifelike settlements. You may wonder why an AI programmer is quoted in a story about art, but this is because of how a game like Horizon Forbidden West works. Horizon Zero Dawn has a great art style (just have a look at our collection of HZD concept art), but it's the technology that makes the art pop in-game: things like the detailed time-of-day system, a dynamic weather system or volumetric light shafts (discussed at length in the Digital Foundry video, below) work miracles in how we perceive a game world. Bump into a machine, and you bump into a gesamtkunstwerk of creative expression, 3D modelling, animation techniques, audio and visual effects, and a lighting system that calculates in real time how light plays on metal objects, grounding the machine in the environment. With this type of critical success, the prospect of a sequel can be daunting. For how do you improve on a game's visuals, when those visuals already push the limits of what is possible? Part of Guerrilla's answer is: by improving and expanding what was already great. Judging from the first gameplay videos Guerrilla shared, Horizon Forbidden West will bring us the same visual spectacle, but improved in many, often incremental ways.

This art book chronicles the development of Horizon Forbidden West as a spectacular visual journey. Through twelve chapters, curated with Guerrilla’s Art Team, Art of Horizon Forbidden West dives deeper than ever into the mysterious new frontier Aloy explores beyond the Sundom. The artbook for the first game was one of the top artbooks from 2017, and this artbook is easily one of the best for this year too. The same goes for the robot enemies: we get to have the same spectacular story of organic beauty vs. metallic beasts we had in Horizon Zero Dawn, but will hear a different song altogether. This because the roster of blinking baddies is greatly expanded upon, introducing new menaces like the Tremortusk or Shellsnapper, huge mechanical nightmares to aim your bow at. Also improved is the combat design—Guerrilla talks of new melee combos and something called "Valor Surges," to further improve Aloy's battle smarts. These new robots may be very much in line with what we are accustomed to, and yet our encounter with them may be very different, explained Lead AI Programmer Arjen Beij in another PlayStation blog.The exception is Latin America - save games from the Latin American edition of Horizon Zero Dawn are not guaranteed to be compatible with Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition in every Latin American country. To play this game on PS5, your system may need to be updated to the latest system software. Although this game is playable on PS5, some features available on PS4 may be absent. See PlayStation.com/bc for more details. Stunning visuals: Experience the vast world of Horizon Forbidden West in stunning 4K and HDR.* From mountain tops to small sprigs of leaves, everything is realized to incredible detail at an enormous scale. Targeting 60fps, Performance Mode further enhances smoothness of movement, animations and controls. Adaptive triggers: Enjoy a new level of immersion when you interact with different objects using the DualSense wireless controller’s adaptive triggers. Feel the tension in the string of your bow, the pull of your new grappling tool and the resistance of the triggers on heavy tribal and mechanical weapons. The Art of Horizon Forbidden West is the companion artbook for the game sequel to Horizon Forbidden Dawn released in 2017.

This is a wonderful artbook that I can recommend easily for fans of the games, concept artists and those who collect artbooks.Standard Edition: CUSA05661 (manufacturing ID: PCJS53022 or PCJS53019) > Complete Edition: CUSA10234 (manufacturing ID: PCJS66013) Dark Horse Books, known for their gorgeous and detailed books and comics, have ventured into the world of Horizon to create a comprehensive chronicle that will delight fans and collectors: The Art of Horizon Forbidden West – including a Deluxe Edition with additional bonus materials! Save games from Horizon Zero Dawn are compatible with Horizon Zero Dawn: Complete Edition, but only if both games are from the same region.