Guerrilla Games’ Technical Director Michiel van der Leeuw has explained in a PlayStation Blog post how the PS4 Pro’s enhanced hardware is being used to make Horizon: Zero Dawn even more lush and alive.
Even with a 1080p TV, playing on a PS4 Pro will provide enhancements such as supersampling. Essentially, the PS4 Pro renders an image at close to 4K and then shrinks it down to 1080p, providing a crisper and more colourful image. More detail survives as the image is shrunk down, leaving smoother edges and a more stable picture.
On 4K TVs, Horizon: Zero Dawn will be rendered using a 2160p checkerboard technique. It will help reveal extra details, that would otherwise go unnoticed. HDR (high dynamic range) expands on the number of colours that can be displayed and as van der Leeuw writes, “It’s very exciting and hard to explain, as it’s something which most people haven’t ever seen before, so they don’t know what to expect. You can’t print it, it’s not in cinemas, your phone’s screen can’t do it. The only thing that you can compare HDR with is reality.”
Horizon: Zero Dawn will be available for PS4 exclusively in 2017.
