Horizon Zero Dawn has been out on PC for less than a month, but it’s already seen a string of patches meant to address reports of frequent crashes and poor performance. The latest patch is out now, and it addresses another standing concern: snow that didn’t let you leave footprints in it.
Patch 1.03 came out today, and its topline fixes are a list of crashes that occurred under specific circumstances. Crashes have been perhaps the most common complaint PC users have had with Horizon Zero Dawn’s recent port, and Guerrilla Games says it’s continuing to track down issues – and using community-compiled bug reports to help.
One issue that’s been plaguing the game since launch, however, is addressed for the first time in patch 1.03, and that’s the lack of deformable snow in areas where Aloy is supposed to leave footprints. Guerrilla says simply that it’s “fixed an issue where snow deformation was not working correctly in the Frozen Wilds area.” That’s certainly welcome news: why even go to the Frozen Wilds if you can’t make snow angels?
Here’s the full list of patch notes, via Steam:
Crash Fixes
- Fixed a GPU resource leak which could build up over time and cause instability.
- Fixed a GPU hang that caused a crash that could occur when Asynchronous Compute was used.
- Fixed a crash when AI would try to aim at an invalid position.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when sound obstruction was calculated in highly detailed areas.
- Fixed a crash that would occur when moving the game to a monitor with different DPI settings while in the menu.
- Fixed an issue where some players would crash on startup due to incorrect memory allocation.
- Fixed a GPU hang that would occur when the window was resized to a very small size.
Progression Issues
- Fixed a progression issue where some players would remain a child and not transition to adult Aloy.
Functionality Issues
- Fixed an issue where snow deformation was not working correctly in the Frozen Wilds area.
- Fixed an issue where the Concentration skill could stop working.
Other Improvements
- 4K Scaling – Fixed an issue where the game wouldn’t render at 4K properly on boot.
- Frame Rate Limiter – Improved Frame Rate Limiter functionality to be more accurate.
- Localization – Localized specific error messages.
- Windows Version Check – The game checks if Windows 10 Build 1809 or above is used (lower versions cause instability in DirectX 12).
- Minimum Spec Warning – Improved minimum spec warning message and options.
- Saving Issue Warning – Clarified text that is displayed when you do not have access to your My document folder or enough disk space.
- Player Profile Validation – The player profile is now validated and corrupt profiles (caused by manual editing or tweak tools) rejected.
If you’re still experiencing issues, you can submit bug reports to Guerrilla directly. You also might be interested to know that Sony has been expressing interest in porting more PlayStation exclusive games to PC. We’ve also got a nice big list of action adventure games to try out if you’re looking for something a bit different.