Refused to Pay for HZD Remastered? PS Plus Delivers

When Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered launched, the backlash was immediate. Players argued that a visual and performance upgrade to a first-party title shouldn't cost money, especially one that added no meaningful new content. Sony charged for it anyway. Now, according to a leak from billbil-kun on Dealabs, the remaster is heading to PS Plus Extra and Premium on April 21, and every holdout just got their patience rewarded.

Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is a visual and performance overhaul that brings the 2017 original closer to Horizon Forbidden West's presentation. Frame rate improvements, better animations, and DualSense support make up the bulk of the changes. It's a polished package, but the controversy was never about quality; it was about charging for an upgrade that felt like it should have been free. I said at the time that Sony would eventually fold this into PS Plus, and here we are, roughly a year and a half later. If you held the line, congratulations.

Joining the remaster in the April Game Catalog are The Crew Motorfest and Football Manager 26 Console, as reported by Insider Gaming. The official announcement from Sony is expected today, April 15, with the games becoming available for download on April 21.

The Crew Motorfest is a solid pickup for anyone who missed Ubisoft's open-world racer, and Football Manager 26 Console rounds out a lineup that covers a surprisingly wide spread of genres. But the headline is clearly Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered. It was the most contentious Sony remaster in recent memory, and putting it on the subscription service is an implicit acknowledgment that the original price ask was a tough sell.

Sony's pattern here is predictable enough that patient PS Plus subscribers can essentially treat it as a rule: wait long enough, and first-party releases land in the catalog. That doesn't make the initial pricing any less frustrating for people who bought in at launch, but it does make the subscription itself a better deal with every passing month.