Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, the first big expansion for the acclaimed open-world sequel, arrives next month, and unlike the base game, this new content is PS5 exclusive. So, how is Guerrilla specifically harnessing the power of the PS5 for this update? Aside from basic stuff like higher resolution and framerate, of course, which they could have done while still supporting the PS4.

　　Well, according to a new PlayStation Blog interview with Horizon Forbidden West director Mathijs de Jonge, a lot of it comes down to the setting of Burning Shores --  a ruined Los Angeles now overgrown and threatened by volcanic eruptions. Adding the crumbling cityscape underneath everything results in a more complex environment that would be hard for the PS4 to handle, particularly when looking over the landscape from a high vantage point or when flying. Guerrilla also promise a new large settlement set amongst the ruins of LA featuring “a lot of activity.”

　　It isn’t just the environment getting a boost through. Guerrilla is also hyping a particularly large battle that wouldn’t be possible on last-gen hardware…

　　“Another notable [PS5-pushing feature] is a particular battle scene that requires a LOT of memory and processing power! To achieve this grand vision both technically and creatively, we definitely were thankful for the many advantages that the PS5 hardware brings.”

　　The Burning Shores debut teaser trailer showed Aloy taking on some sort of giant multi-legged machine that towers over and destroys the iconic Hollywood sign. I wonder if that’s the memory-gobbling battle Guerrilla mentions. Regardless, It’s nice to hear the studio is using the power of the PS5 to realize a grander vision and bigger, more exciting setpieces, rather than just saying “we used it to make the textures sharper and add ray tracing” or whatever. Those visual bells and whistles are nice, but I want developers to use current-gen platforms to give me gameplay experiences I haven’t had before.

　　Horizon Forbidden West can be played on PS4 and PS5. The Burning West expansion launches exclusively on PS5 on April 19. What do you think? Excited to see what the technical wizards a Guerrilla can do without being shackled to the dusty old PS4?