Horizon Forbidden West loads so fast on PS5 the developers had to slow it down
Horizon Forbidden West’s PS5 loading times were so fast that developer Guerilla Games have revealed that they had to deliberately slow them down and increase the time players spend hanging on loading screens.
Game director Mathijs de Jonge told Engadget that the PS5’s internal SSD allowed for drastically increased loading times over the PS4’s hard drive, letting players boot up the game or fast travel across its map within seconds, rather than minutes.
However, the speeds were so fast that playtesters didn’t have enough time to read the gameplay hints displayed on each loading screen, missing out on tips about Aloy’s gear and the environment of the Forbidden West.
“In Horizon Zero Dawn, we called it fast travel, but it could take maybe a minute to actually load,” de Jonge said.
“With the PS5, it’s maybe four or five seconds, it loads so quickly that players can’t even read the hints.
“We had to add a very simple feature where it hangs on the loading screen for enough time so you can actually read at least one hint while it loads.”
It’s a simple solution and one that’s been implemented in many games before. When you fast travel to another location on the map, the game will use the PS5’s speedy SSD to load the new area in a matter of seconds, but will remain hanging on the loading screen until you press X to continue.
The loading time isn’t reduced, and you can press X right away if you’d rather not read the hints. But those players who are after a few tips can read to their heart’s content.
Since the next generation of consoles were released, the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S have been praised across the board for their SSD storage. The boot and load times of both consoles are vastly quicker than their predecessors, letting you hop
Read more on techradar.com
