If you haven't logged into the game in a while, they had a big performance patch that really makes the game shine!

I'm not mad I played this when I did but I popped into the new patch on Performance mode and it's a pretty drastic increase in visual quality! I didn't check out Resolution mode since the FPS was so bad originally but everything is super sharp and less blurry on Performance mode now. I still have some endgame stuff to do so maybe I'll go back and nab some quests this weekend.

I gave it a quick try yesterday too and yeah, it's a noticeable difference in performance mode. I also have a *lot* of side stuff still left to do, but I miiight wait for the VRR support that they're suppose to add in the next patch.

Well I'm glad i didn't get to play the sequel yet, lol.

It's still so weird to me that game companies do this and then they put the game on sale like 50% off and basically teach everyone "see, buying day one is stupid" and yet, it looks like more and more people are smashing that pre-order button, everytime.

@donutello: As I've gotten older the less I care about saving £20/30 on a game I really want to play, time or lack thereof is a much bigger factor.

Considering the console audience is closer to 30 these day this probably rings true for a lot of folks.

Most people only buy 1-2 games a year and when I do I'll book time off work, the price is less of an issue then.

Horizon FW is a fantastic game well worth the full price, if a significant number of people waiting till 50% off we wouldn't have a sequel.

Games make most of their money within the first 3 months of release that's when most companies green light another title.

To derail the thread slightly, where is this coming from? I find this really hard to believe, honestly.

@broshmosh: The PS4 has an attach rate 9.6, the average user owns less the 10 games.

Outside of the core folks who spend a lot most people only get COD/FIFA each year and that's it.

And the PS4 is at higher end, both 360/PS3 were lower even the Switch which has an attach rate of 7.4.

i'm stoked that this update seems to be 'fixing' a lot of the technical issues some folks had with the game. personally i found it pretty solid at launch (played the whole thing on resolution mode so clearly i can live with 30fps) but the improvements seem very much appreciated.

i had a hoot playing ZD on ultra hard in NG+, so i will very likely will give FW the same shot soon!

Yeah personally I thought the game was fine on either mode, I actually took the framerate hit just to see the visuals anyway, but this is a nice update for when I get back to it.

@thepanzini: Which is weird given the whole idea people push that games should be short and beatable in a weekend or two yet the idea is people only buy a few games each generation. I know alot of friends who only play fifa and nba etc and scoff at the idea of ever trying the GOTY each year. I wonder if a sports franchise will ever get GOTY or even try given they sell well and people seem to love them...or is the bar really low cause that's all they got and they perfected it years ago and its just small tweeks.

Anyway, yeah people scoff at a skyrim large game, screamed that elden ring was too long and hard, yet only play a few games. Youd think long would be nice to hold them over.

For what it's worth specifically regarding this game, I loved playing it in the fidelity mode if that's what they called it and never thought much about the framerate. It's been cool playing most games at 60 on PS5, but for whatever reason certain games I've just appreciated more at a...clippier performance. They tend to be Sony first party games. I like to say it's because those games feel cinematic and it makes more sense to my eyes for them to be closer to the traditional film performance of 24, but that's probably just pretension. My opinion is, in my opinion, pretty useless in the performance conversation.

But I do enjoy the other thing, how games this big (and increasingly games exponentially smaller as well) offer a much more substantial, or preferable, experience the longer you wait to play them. Not only that, they're cheaper! I totally get that there's a value there, but I'd side with anyone that argued I'd rather just see the game as it shipped, talk about it alongside other enthusiastic players and take the bumps where they may come. I'm not religious about this - I emphatically dropped The Witcher 3 for nearly a year until the waterfall of patches subsided - but for the most part, I think it's most fun to be in the mud when it's muddiest.

I also fall in the middle of whatever the average vs. hardcore gamer is in terms of what I actually play each year. I get impulsive sometimes, but unless I'm truly excited to play (and talk about) something it's easy for me to accept I already like playing the games I own. I'm also not a serial re-player, but I do like to replay games I really enjoyed, or even just enjoyed thinking about, the first time at least once more. Especially if there's a New Game Plus. Most relevant to this thread, obviously, is that I've already hovered over the option to download Forbidden West twice late at night since Thursday and I'm acutely aware of just how time consuming this game can be.

But I do the same thing with Metal Gear Solid V once a month and it's partially out of a wonder whether that game's weird economy is totally broken seven years later! A goofy part of me wants to play Mafia III again, and I replayed a large portion of Death Stranding just because the DualSense felt as conflicted about it as I did. So I think it's also really cool that games can be really good at launch and then get even better, and I've never understood specifically why it's "bad" that a game launches one way and eventually does this or that thing better. Outside of some incredibly specific instances like the Diablo 3 launch, I think most games satisfy their most excited players right away. The adjustments made along the way feel more like appeasements to those players who buy more than one game at a time, never buy a game right away out of whatever financial consideration / self-imposed principle or just don't have the ability to play said game when it first drops anyway.

In other words...there's 800 or more words about why I won't be surprised when I'm hovering over the idea of re-downloading Forbidden West three times each weekend after a couple beers after reading about what's been added to it!

I would be curious to see some actual stats from the PS5 playerbase, regarding the split between the two modes. I tried the resolution mode and it definitely did look sharper in that, but man, it felt SO incredibly sluggish that I just couldn't stick to it, when there was the 60FPS choice.

I really wish they had had a mode where it'd automatically flip to performance when you were talking to someone. It's basically an instant switch in the settings anyway, so it'd be nice to have it just flip over when you're in a dialogue and flip back when you got out of it!