Horizon Hunters Gathering, the live-action multiplayer spinoff of PlayStation’s post-apocalyptic Horizon series, is being rebooted as a smaller, more traditional co-op experience with a story mode, according to anonymous insiders. In the process, we’re told, several project staffers are being reassigned within Sony’s game development empire, even as a small team at Guerrilla Games works on the next “real” single-player Horizon game.
Announced by Guerrilla earlier this year, Horizon Hunters Gathering sees (or has seen) human adventurers set out in search of a social center to collect loot. Set after the events of 2022’s Horizon Forbidden West, it was announced with an episodic narrative component, a wave-based Machine Incursion survival mode, and a roguelite experience called Cauldron Descent. The developers have been organizing playtests ever since, and apparently the reception has been rather negative.
Talk to BloombergAccording to Jason Schreier, several people “familiar with the company’s plans” say Sony is now planning to remove the live service element altogether and turn Hunters Gathering into a simpler cooperative game. The development team now has “until December” (in Schreier’s words) to impress the leaders moving up the ranks. A PlayStation representative declined to comment on any of this.
Like many major video game publishers, PlayStation continues to have a tortured love affair with the live service. In June, PlayStation CEO Hideaki Nishino declared that “we believe that live gaming is content that attracts users globally, so we want to continue to revitalize the market through first-party and third-party content.”
This is despite several years of setbacks, including the cancellation of Concord just months after launch and the abandonment of live service spinoffs for The Last Of Us, Spider-Man and God Of War, as well as an untitled project cancellation at Days Gone developers Sony Bend. Sony also recently fired hundreds of developers from Destiny 2 and Marathon, Bungie. Back in February 2022Sony announced plans to launch a dozen live games by March 2026, but later cut that number in half. Aside from the tendency of executives to put all the chips in the latest move that pleases investors, the fundamental problem is that live service games require a lot of ongoing investment, and there are already plenty of live service games, including “evergreen” performers such as Fortnite that are absorbing all the attention.
As for the upcoming story-driven Horizon game, according to Bloomberg’s sources, it will still take years to complete. Hopefully this lands after Sony decides to release first-party single-player games on PC again.
