The latest Horizon Zero Dawn patch fixes anisotropic filtering and other graphical issues

Aloy faces the blue triangle marking a Cauldron dungeon
(Image credit: Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Patch 1.07 for Horizon Zero Dawn is live, and it's focused on graphical issues. Previously there was an unskippable shader optimization at first launch, which this patch replaces with pre-optimization that begins in the main menu and dynamic optimizing that continues in-game. The pre-optimization step can be skipped if you want to jump right in, though it'll decrease loading times if you let it finish. The other big fix: "Anisotropic Filtering now works correctly".

Our review noted that at launch Horizon Zero Dawn was "a slightly inconsistent PC port", running well on some rigs and poorly on others regardless of their specs. Since then, subsequent patches have improved performance and fixed notable bugs, like the one that kept protagonist Aloy trapped as a child forever, and the one that prevented her from walking in the direction the camera was facing, and the one that stopped her hair from displaying correctly when the game was running at over 30fps.

The remaining known issues Guerrilla Games list include instability related to CPUs with over 16 cores, and problems with certain graphical settings like HDR not working correctly, which will be the subject of future patches.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.