loading times so fast they were slowed down

One of the biggest advances offered by next-gen consoles is the tangible reduction in loading times. It must be said that since the integration of SSDs on the PS5 and Xbox Series, players have saved a lot of time, but for developers there is another problem, which is also real. In an interview with our colleagues from Endgaget, Mathijs de Jonge and Michiel van der Leeuw, respectively Game Director and Technical Director on Horizon 2 Forbidden West, returned to several technical aspects of the game, and in particular the constraint left by these now non-existent loadings. Indeed, if the first Horizon Zero Dawn required more than a minute to load its data on PS4, it takes less than 4 or 5 seconds for Horizon 2 Forbidden West on PS5, which can be a problem during moments of “fast travel”. ” where the developers take the opportunity to display a page of tips and advice. Only then, in 4 or 5 seconds, it was impossible for the players to read the notes addressed to them, which prompted the game developers to extend the loading times so that reading was possible…

In Horizon Zero Dawn, we called it fast travel, but it could take maybe a minute to load. With the PS5 it’s maybe four or five seconds, it loads so fast that players can’t even read the hints. We had to add a very simple feature where the game hangs on the loading screen for long enough that you can actually read at least one hint while it’s loading. Of course, people who want to speed things up can just press X or disable this pause in the settings so the game loads as quickly as possible.

This is not the first time that a studio has extended loading times to give the player time to read the clues given on the screen. This was already the case with Ghost of Tsushima and in its PS4 version. Like what, with a technology that allows games to be loaded instantaneously, there are other concerns for developers.