Introduction

Horizon Forbidden West is finally available for PC. It’s the highly anticipated sequel to the critically acclaimed Horizon Zero Dawn, continuing the epic journey of protagonist Aloy in a post-apocalyptic world. Developed by Guerrilla Games, and ported to PC by Nixxes, this action role-playing game thrusts players into a vast and visually stunning world filled with danger, mystery, and adventure. With a captivating storyline, breathtaking landscapes, and innovative gameplay mechanics, Horizon Forbidden West promises to deliver an unforgettable gaming experience for both newcomers and fans of the series alike.

Horizon Forbidden West uses the Decima Engine, which was also used by the first title, Horizon Zero Dawn. Another famous game using that engine is Death Stranding. While the engine lacks support for ray tracing, it still supports DirectX 12 and uses modern rendering techniques to enhance visual fidelity and overall performance.

In terms of upscalers you get support for NVIDIA DLSS 2 Super Resolution, DLAA and DLSS 3 Frame Generation. Also supported is AMD FSR 2 Super Resolution, but FSR 3 Frame Generation isn’t included. Intel XeSS Super Resolution is available, and the game uses Microsoft’s DirectStorage to load its game assets from disk efficiently.

This benchmark review will evaluate the performance of Horizon Forbidden West on a wide selection of modern graphics cards, show image quality comparisons and look at what’s required in terms of VRAM usage.