Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered will have way more NPCs thanks to PS5 specs

digitaltrends.com:

We already learned a bit about the kinds of changes Guerrilla Games and Nixxes brought to Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, but beyond noting how much more dialogue and mo-cap was recorded, there weren’t many specifics. A new PlayStation blog post has gone into more detail about the improvements, including how the teams worked to make the world feel more alive.

Nixxes senior technical game designer Brian van Nunen wrote in the post that one of those ways was to add more NPCs in villages, cities, and outposts, which they were able to do because of the PlayStation 5’s more powerful specs. And not only will there be more of them but they’ll have more varied schedules and will move around in a more realistic manner.

“Building the game for PS5 allowed us to leverage the increased amount of memory available, enabling us to significantly boost the number of non-player characters,” van Nunen wrote. “We added many more places for NPCs to stand, sit, work and fulfil their needs. We gave them more varied schedules to increase movement and liveliness in different areas. We also tried to make creative use of existing animations.”

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One of the big improvements going from the original Zero Dawn to its sequel, Horizon Forbidden West, was just how the developers were able to utilize PS5 versus PS4. So there was a lot more activity in cities, with people mulling about and getting in Aloy’s way as she walked around. These details have become more important as open-world games get larger, so it’s nice to see Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered looking to compete.

To make NPCs feel even more lifelike, Nixxes also made changes to “skin tones, hair quality, and outfits,” which were carried over from For