Horizon Zero Dawn
Killzone Shadow Fall might have hinted that Guerrilla Games was through with the muddy grayness of its former titles, but it was Horizon that showed that it wasn’t playing around anymore. Horizon’s sweeping color palette across a varied open world impressed, as did the exquisitely detailed robotic dinosaurs. (Their glowing eyes were not only intimidating, they made all of us Killzone fans nostalgic.) When you fought them, various parts sparking and sputtering as you shot them off helped sell the action and immediacy.
The first Horizon wasn’t just pretty to look at when standing on a cliff or Tall Neck overlooking the abandoned earth, it was also beautiful in motion. Horizon was a fun game elevated by some seriously pretty PS4 graphics.
