Guerrilla Games’ best-seller receives immediate criticism

One of the most well-regarded titles of the eighth console generation, Horizon Zero Dawn, finally arrived to PC over three years after its initial release – only to be immediately lambasted on Steam with negative reviews.

It was only a few years ago that HZD was enjoying massive success and ludicrous sales – reaching almost eight-million copies sold by February of 2018. It even went on to win the BAFTA Award for Best Original Property in the same year. If this is the case, why is there such a disconnect between PlayStation and PC audiences?

Most recent negative reviews, if not all, cite the port’s poor-performance and optimization as the culprit for the game’s negative reception. On reviewer, going by Magical Beard, wrote, “Game looks great - but its crashing in the first 5 minutes of actual gameplay, I cant seem to get past the first room.” Another, Kaldaien, labeled the port as a “mess” filled with “fundamentally poor decisions.”

This doesn’t mean that HZD is doing poorly on Steam, in fact, quite the opposite. As of writing, Horizon Zero Dawn currently sits as the sixteenth most played game on Steam with over 49,000 concurrent players – just under Sid Meier’s Civilization VI and above Dead by Daylight. And it’s not like all of HZD’s reviews were negative, only almost half of them.

It wasn’t long before Guerilla took to Twitter to address the growing number of complaints after their port’s release. They have made it clear that they’re “aware that some players have been experiencing crashes and other issues.” Audience replies were similar to those on Steam, as many continued to mock Guerilla.

Some people even posted screenshots of torrent sites hosting Guerilla Games’ hit barely hours after release.

Guerrilla also posted a reply to Steam, assuring audiences that the investigation of player-reports is of the highest priority, but as of writing, a patch is yet to be released.

Horizon Zero Dawn is available now for PlayStation 4 and PC download on Steam and Epic Games Store.