Horizon Dawn Graphics Overview

Another great PS4 exclusive. A lot of similarities in the grapics when compared to God of War. The difference being that HD is more of a open world, which brings all the "features" that come with that, such as LOD popping, shadow distance issues, etc. All things considered, they handled it very well.

Even though it focus greatly on the open world gameplay mechanics, it does not skimp on the indoor areas. It takes advantage of these areas to showcase some great lighting opportunities.

The exterior lighting has great help from post-production effects such as occluded light shafts from the sun light, fog and bloom. The day in the day-night cycle looks standard compared to other games of this generation. The night time is where the exterior really shines. The art-direction has nailed the ambiance here giving an eerie feel that looks great while keeping things visible enough for gameplay, and dark enough for the right amount of shadow and other light source contrast.

The fog had to be set just right to give the sense of scale needed for the surrealistically huge creatures you see in the game, and provide also the sense of depth of the huge map.

Something else I really liked in the game was the map. Great color pallet and style used, made it a pleasure to look at and easy to find what you're looking for quickly. The icons and UI used is another story, and not something I can objectively review, but I found it a big hard to distinguish between the different icons for each beast I had to hunt.