Francis ParcoWhile its reasonable to expect remasters to attract more players than the original versions, exceptions happen every now and then. The original Horizon Zero Dawn vs the recent PS5 and PC remaster is among these exceptions.
Push Square took to Steam to compare the player counts between both versions of the Guerrilla Games 2017 hit. In their findings, the 2017 Horizon Zero Dawn had concurrent players peak at 2,588 compared to the remaster’s peak player count at 2,251. These numbers were collected during the span of 24 hours. Additionally, the all-time record for the original version of Horizon reached 56,557 players compared to the remaster’s 2,538. Based on these numbers alone, it seems on the surface that the remaster (at least on PC)… isn’t attracting the amount of players and that players have much more interest in the original.
As of this posting, the 2024 remaster was just released last week on Halloween. Though it may still be a point of concern for the remaster’s developer Nixxes, there’s still plenty more time ahead to watch and see whether or not the concurrent player counts will improve for the remaster. Afterall, these are just looking at PC player counts for both original and remaster, PS4/PS5 player counts are not included. Granted for PS4/PS5, console player counts are not commonly tracked in the same way as Steam player counts.
Though if player counts for the remaster do not improve over time, there could be a number of reasons why the original Zero Dawn still sees more players than the new remaster. One possible explanation is how Sony increased the original’s price from $19.99 to $39.99, making this a potential deal-breaker for some fans. At the same time, existing players were offered a $9.99 fee to upgrade to the remaster. There have also been mixed fan reviews to the remaster on Steam, as reported by PC Gamer. Fans criticized the PSN account requirements in addition to various glitches and performance issues that may be limiting sales (and thus the concurrent player count). Finally, there’s the consideration that fans may view the remaster as pointless or made too soon due to Horizon Zero Dawn getting ported to PC just a few years ago in 2020 (via GamesRadar).
Whatever the case, only time will tell if the remaster will attract more players and if the current relatively low player count will affect Sony’s strategy of porting PlayStation exclusives to PC (including their remasters/remakes).
What do you think? Is it too early to sound the alarm on the Horizon remaster’s player count, or is this an early sign for trouble heading for the remaster? Let us know below!
