PS5’s ‘Horizon Forbidden West’ Wins Digital Foundry’s Best Graphics Of 2022 Award

Horizon Forbidden West bought nominated for fairly a couple of Sport Awards this previous yr, however was shut out of all classes, oftentimes by its PlayStation rival, God of Warfare Ragnarok, which isn’t an enormous shock.

Nevertheless, Horizon Forbidden West simply received a yearly award that I’d most likely argue ought to be a class at The Sport Awards, Finest Graphics for 2022, given right here by the one place that’s actually match to guage it, Digital Foundry.

Digital Foundry posted their newest awards video crowning Horizon Forbidden West, the winner:

Horizon Forbidden West was up there alongside two different PlayStation video games, Gran Turismo 7 and The Final of Us Remake, together with The Callisto Protocol and Portal RTX. No Xbox video games, as a result of properly, Xbox barely launched something unique this yr, and no Nintendo video games as a result of properly, they don’t precisely have the horsepower to compete in “Finest Graphics” classes, outdoors of stylized animation. And I think God of Warfare Ragnarok didn’t make the listing due to sacrifices that needed to be made to make it cross-gen. Horizon was cross-gen too, however did a greater job total, it appears.

Whereas I did assume that Horizon fell quick in a couple of locations as a sport, its visuals was actually not a type of locations. Horizon Forbidden West, along with its beautiful, colourful landscapes that additionally made the primary sport one of many best-looking releases ever, leveled up its potential to render NPC performances in a manner I actually have by no means seen in a sport earlier than. These have been one of the best trying, finest efficiency captured NPCs I’ve ever seen in a online game, bar none, which was true of not simply the slate of principal characters, however even one-off NPCs you would possibly solely work together with a few times. Briefly, I’m saying that is an award well-deserved.

So, ought to “Finest Graphics” be a class at The Sport Awards? I’d argue sure, though some could say which will favor enormous budgeted AAA video games. The Sport Awards does have Finest Artwork Course, which this yr went to Elden Ring, however that’s sort of a unique class than Finest Graphics can be, which is extra of a technical award, and one I’d argue is distinct sufficient the place we should always have each. I imply if we’re going to have 5 esports awards given out in 45 seconds and issues like “Video games for Change,” it appears like Finest Graphics ought to undoubtedly be in there someplace. However for now, Horizon Forbidden West ought to actually be pleased with this Digital Foundry win.

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Decide up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller sequence and The Earthborn Trilogy.