How to pre-load Horizon Forbidden West on PC?

With Horizon Forbidden West's PC release being just around the corner, the pre-loads are now live on Steam. Being among the most revered PlayStation exclusives and a sequel to one of the best open-world role-playing games of the PS4 generation, there's a ton of excitement surrounding Horizon Forbidden West's PC release, especially among graphics enthusiasts.

It's not an exaggeration to count Horizon Zero Dawn and its sequel as some of the most visually impressive role-playing games of the eighth console generation. While Horizon Forbidden West already looked excellent on PlayStation consoles, especially on PS5, it will reportedly look even more impressive on PC.

This article presents everything you need to know about pre-loading Horizon Forbidden West on PC, including file size, system requirements, and more.

Note: You can only pre-load the game if you pre-order it.

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Horizon Forbidden West PC pre-load guide

Horizon Forbidden West is a massive game, not just in terms of the content it has to offer but also its storage footprint. With a secondary memory requirement of 150 GB, it's arguably one of the biggest PlayStation PC titles out there, far surpassing the likes of Helldivers 2, Ratchet Clank: Rift Apart, and the previous Horizon game.

As such, you might want to free up plenty of storage space on your SSD before pre-loading the game. Once you make sure you have plenty of storage headroom, follow these steps to pre-load Horizon Forbidden West on your PC:

• Launch Steam on your PC.
• Head to the Library and search for Horizon Forbidden West.
• Once you land on the game's Library page, click Pre-load to initiate the download.

Pre-loading ensures that you won't have to waste too much time downloading or installing a game when it releases, allowing you to jump into the action right away. However, pre-loading on PC also comes with a lengthy decryption process that starts from the moment the game is released.

Depending on your hardware configuration, especially on your CPU, memory, and storage, the decryption can take quite a while to conclude. For reference, decrypting a 70 GB pre-load file on a Ryzen 5 5600X, RX 6600XT, and 16GB primary memory takes roughly 35-40 minutes.

As such, if you have a fast enough internet connection, you might find it best to download the game once it is released to avoid having to wait an additional hour or two for the decryption process to conclude.

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Horizon Forbidden West PC system requirements

Horizon Forbidden West is a graphical powerhouse, one that still stands tall among some of PS5's most visually impressive titles, alongside the likes of God of War Ragnarok, Demon's Souls (remake), Final Fantasy XVI, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and The Last of Us Part 2 (Remastered).

As such, it's no wonder the sequel comes with some hefty system requirements. Here are the minimum and recommended system requirements for Horion Forbidden West on PC:

Minimum

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit (version 1909 or higher)
• Processor: Intel Core i3-8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1300X
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 4GB or AMD Radeon RX 5500XT 4GB
• Storage: 150 GB available space
• Additional Notes: 150GB SSD Space

Recommended

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit (version 1909 or higher)
• Processor: Intel Core i5-8600 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700
• Storage: 150 GB available space
• Additional Notes: 150GB SSD Space

Surprisingly, the CPU requirements for the upcoming PlayStation PC title seem to be a tad on the lower side, with the recommended CPU being a Zen2 Ryzen, with 6 cores and 12 threads. The GPU requirements suggest the game is heavy on VRAM and not actual memory.

Lastly, an SSD seems to be mandatory for the game. While ideally, it's best to install the game on a Gen4 NVMe drive, which equates to the storage unit inside of a PS5, you should be good with a SATA3 SSD as well, as long as you have enough CPU and GPU headroom.

The only thing we would recommend against is installing the game on an HDD. While on paper, that should work perfectly fine and dandy, given the Horizon Zero Dawn sequel also comes with the Burning Shores DLC, which, mind you, was a PS5 exclusive, it's understandable why Nixxes Software recommends an SSD instead of a traditional hard drive.

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How big is Horizon Forbidden West on PC?

Well, in terms of file size, the upcoming PlayStation PC title weighs in at 122.02 GB, which is roughly the same as the PS5 version. However, the download, or rather the pre-load size, is 96.5 GB. While not as big as other recent releases like Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, which comes with a 145.7 GB file size on the PS5, Horizon Forbidden West is still quite massive.

Make sure you have plenty of storage space available on your PC's SSD before you start downloading the game.