Horizon Zero Dawn patch fixes a bug that kept Aloy trapped as a child forever

Aloy look s up — (Image credit: Guerrilla Games)

Horizon Zero Dawn tells the tale of Aloy, a young woman who grows up in a post-apocalypse ruled by robot dinosaurs and embarks upon a quest to unravel the mysteries of the strange world she lives in. For some players, though, a weird bug and a bit of bad luck meant that her coming-of-age moment didn't happen. Even game characters can experience stunted growth, it turns out.

As explained in this August post on Reddit (via Kotaku), a crash in the midst of a cutscene in which Aloy grows up would leave her stuck in her childhood state forever. It's kind of funny, although probably not so amusing for players who actually run into the bug.

I crashed during the cutscene where Aloy grows up, so apparently the game thought she never hit puberty. I ran around as kid Aloy for 15 minutes in vain and only found out after I gave up and watched a walkthrough on youtube. from r/horizon

The latest update, taking the Steam version of the game to 1.03, promises to fix that rather literal progression issue, as well as a handful of crash bugs and functionality problems. Other improvements, including proper 4K scaling, a better framerate limiter, and improved minimum spec warnings, have also been added.

This is the third update to be released for Horizon Zero Dawn on Steam since the game launched on August 7, but unfortunate there are still some fairly significant known issues remaining, including out of memory errors during the optimization process, graphical settings include anisotropic filtering and HDR not working properly, and performance problems on certain hardware configurations. The developers also said they're "aware of and continuing to investigate" the issues on the lists being maintained by redditors EvilMonkeySlayer and Rampage572.

Players who continue to experience problems with the game following the 1.03 patch are asked to provide feedback at guerrilla-games.com. The full patch notes are below.

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.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.