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If you want to buy Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam, you have to buy its remaster

Aloy running towards a Tallneck with her bow and arrow.
PlayStation

As we get closer to the release of Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, it’s become more and more difficult to purchase the original Complete Edition of the game. This week, it’s starting to be delisted from digital PC storefronts.

It was first removed from the Epic Games Store, as some ResetEra users reported earlier this week. While the store page is still live, the buy button has been grayed out and just reads “unavailable.” There also isn’t a link to purchase the remaster from this page, although you can find it through search and preorder it ahead of its October 31 release date.

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When I first saw the ResetEra thread, I went to check Steam and GOG, and found the Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition was still available to purchase. However, on Thursday, it appears that it’s impossible to buy the Complete Edition on its own on Steam. If you head to the Valve storefront, you can only prepurchase the Remastered bundle, which comes with a copy of the Complete Edition along with the Remastered upgrade, for $50. You can still buy Remastered solo, but buying the bundle with the $10 add-on is the only way to get the Complete Edition on the platform.

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At the time of this writing, the game is still up on GOG for $50. As with other games on the store, it’s digital rights managment (DRM) free. You can also find codes for it on third-party sites like CDKeys.

All of this seems to be a part of PlayStation’s plan to ensure you absolutely get the Remastered edition if you want to play Horizon Zero Dawn, whether you want it or not. This even extends to console players, who began noticing that the cost of the original game on the PlayStation Store had doubled from $20 to $40. The company didn’t announce the price increase and hasn’t publicly made a comment about it, but it’s likely a strategy to dissuade players from getting the older version and steer them toward getting the new one.

The remaster mostly just offers visual and performance upgrades, along with updates specifically for the PlayStation 5, but Guerilla Games and support studio Nixes also added around 10 hours of conversation and new mocap.

Carli Velocci
Carli is a technology, culture, and games editor and journalist. They were the Gaming Lead and Copy Chief at Windows Central…
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