Ludovic Marie
0e65e85878
Ludovic's decision (2026-10-23): no more Alpha and Stable. release.yml publishes every game release as the release and GitHub's latest instead of a pre-release that promote.yml made stable once a day. The checks that gated a promotion run in the release itself: `decide` holds the train while an issue labelled release-blocker is open (forced runs too), and the publish job runs `release_train.py gate` right before publishing: the Mac mini's smoke-test.json must be there and show a world was drawn, and no blocker may be open. Otherwise nothing is published. Notes cover everything since the last release that is not a pre-release, so the first single-channel release lists all of it since v0.2.0. promote.yml, tools/release_channels.py and its tests are deleted. The cadence is unchanged (5 minutes of settling, 20 at most, release-now at once). Docs and site: one channel in release-flow, versioning, security, the FAQ, install, the home page and the Releases page (Game / Launcher filter); no player-facing Alpha wording left. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Settings worth knowing
Horizon plays like vanilla out of the box. This page covers the settings that are different or new: graphics, distant terrain, shader packs, resource packs, controllers and a few optional extras.
The game's menus are vanilla's. Horizon adds its own settings to vanilla's Options screen the way mods do: Horizon Settings... and Mods... take the last two buttons of the grid. Horizon Settings opens Graphics, Advanced Graphics, Shader Packs, Controller Settings, Extras and Mods, each a screen of vanilla's buttons and sliders. The graphics and shader pack buttons are also at the top of Video Settings, and Controller Settings at the bottom of Controls.
Graphics: presets, Simple and Advanced
Options, Video Settings starts with Horizon Graphics... and Advanced Graphics... (also in Options, Horizon Settings).
- Horizon Graphics has a preset (Performance, Balanced, Quality, Ultra or Custom) and LOD distance.
- Advanced Graphics has every Horizon setting, in groups: Rendering, Quality, Display, Preferences, Performance and Overlay.
Vanilla's own settings (render distance, field of view, frame rate, VSync, GUI scale and the rest) stay on Video Settings, where vanilla has them.
Every row has a one-line description and its cost in frame time: none, low, medium or high. Changes apply at once, except worker threads, which apply at the next start. A preset sets the quality settings together, and changing one of them turns the preset into Custom.
Two settings are worth knowing on laptops and handhelds. Battery mode (Performance group, off by default) caps the frame rate at 60 in a world and 30 in menus, and uses half the automatic worker threads. The performance overlay (Overlay group) shows the frame rate, frame times and a graph over the game.
Not available: anisotropic filtering, MSAA (FXAA is there instead) and exclusive fullscreen (fullscreen is borderless).
Distant terrain (LOD)
LOD Distance draws far-away terrain as simplified columns, so you can see much farther than the render distance. It is off by default. Turn it on in the Video settings and choose 64, 128, 256, 512 or 1024 chunks.
- Keep the normal render distance modest next to it. For example 12 chunks with a LOD distance of 256. Full Detail Distance sets the nearby range.
- LOD does not raise the simulation distance: far terrain is only drawn, not simulated.
- Detail arrives gradually. A big radius does not mean everything is drawn right away.
- Far terrain is made from the world's seed, so places you have not visited are drawn too, close to what they will be. Small features, fluid edges and lighting can differ from the real chunks.
- Horizon caps far terrain on integrated graphics and holds it back on computers with four threads.
Graphics API on Windows
Linux always uses Vulkan and macOS always uses Metal. On Windows there is a choice, in Options, Video Settings, Advanced Graphics, Performance, Graphics API:
- Auto (the default) uses Vulkan, and DirectX 12 when Vulkan has no graphics card or driver that works.
- Vulkan and DirectX 12 force one of the two.
The change applies at the next start. If Vulkan gives you trouble, try DirectX 12.
Shader packs
Shader packs are experimental. Put a pack's folder in the shaderpacks folder of the game folder (see Install for where that is), then choose it in Options, Video Settings, Shader Packs (or Options, Horizon Settings, Shader Packs). With no pack selected the game draws exactly what vanilla draws. A pack that fails to load shows why in red and leaves the normal picture on.
Horizon can run the full-screen effects of Java shader packs (OptiFine and Iris packs: colour grading, bloom, sky and fog effects). It does not run their geometry and shadow passes yet, so packs do not look as they do in Iris. Horizon also has its own shader pack format, in WGSL, with a pack.toml manifest, options and hot reload. It has full-screen passes too; stages that draw the world's terrain and shadows are planned. The details are in the shader pack notes.
The Shader Packs page shows the full path of the shaderpacks folder with an Open Folder button, then one switch per pack. Turning a pack on picks it, and turning it off gives the vanilla picture. Packs tested so far: BSL, Complementary Reimagined, Steadfast and Sildur's Vibrant Extreme draw their full-screen passes; Bliss, Bloop, Noble, Photon and Rethinking Voxels do not load yet. To find packs, the launcher's Mods page installs shader packs from Modrinth (see Mods and data packs).
Resource packs
Java Edition resource packs work. Put the folder or .zip in the resourcepacks folder of the game folder and pick it on the Resource Packs screen, which is vanilla's screen. The game reloads every loader from the pack, as vanilla does.
The launcher's Mods page can download them from Modrinth (see Mods and data packs).
Resource packs: what works lists everything a 26.3 resource pack can change and whether Horizon honours it.
Controllers
Horizon plays with PlayStation (DualShock 4 and DualSense), Xbox (360, One and Series) and Nintendo Switch Pro controllers, and with the Steam Deck's built-in controls. Vanilla has no controller support at all, so this is Horizon's own. With no controller connected, nothing changes.
- Settings are in Options, Controls, Controller Settings (or Options, Horizon Settings, Controller Settings): on or off, vibration, look sensitivity, inverting the axes, deadzones, button glyphs and remapping.
- Menus, the inventory and chat work with a controller, with an on-screen keyboard for text.
- On a DualSense you can also set adaptive triggers and the lightbar.
- On the Steam Deck, Steam's default layout works with no setup.
Extras
Options, Horizon Settings, Extras holds small, optional conveniences. Every one is off by default, so a fresh install behaves like vanilla: fullbright, zoom, a minimap, an FPS counter, a keystroke display, auto-reconnect, Mouse Tweaks-style inventory controls and inventory sorting. One more is dynamic lights: a torch, lantern or other light source that you hold, that lies dropped as an item, or a burning mob, lights the blocks around it. It is client-side only, so other players do not see it.
Where your settings are stored
In the game folder, next to options.txt. That file keeps vanilla's own keys and values, so a vanilla client can share the folder. Horizon's own settings are in horizon-graphics.txt, horizon-controller.txt and a few more beside it.