Sony is taking yet another smack to the face of its live-service push, because a new report says Horizon Hunters Gathering is being rebooted. All of its live-service elements are being tossed in the bin, and the whole game will be much smaller in scale.
According to Schreier’s anonymous sources, Guerilla Games has been working to reboot the game since June of this year, following the poor player feedback that came out of the game’s beta test. The game is not being cancelled, but sources told Schreier the team has until December to impress the Sony execs.
Around that same time, a chunk of the developers working on the game will be reassigned to a different project that is also going to be evaluated at the end of the year. Reading between the lines, there’s a good chance that project is Horizon 3.
Schreier’s sources claim that the new plan is to completely eradicate the live-service elements of Horizon Hunters Gathering, and shift the focus to something resembling a traditional co-op multiplayer game with a story mode. The scope will also be much smaller, apparently.
But the craziest part of the story is that Guerilla has seemingly focused almost its entire studio on this live service gamble at the behest of Sony. Schreier states that his informants tell him Guerilla put the majority of its staff onto Horizon Hunter Gathering. Only a small team was left to figure out what the true sequel to Horizon Forbidden West looks like, and it’s apparently years away from completion.
To put that timeline into perspective, Horizon Zero Dawn launched in 2017. The sequel released 5 years later in 2022. Following that pattern and the current triple-A development times, the next game would have been expected to launch in 2027 or 2028, but if Schreier’s sources are correct, we could be looking at 2029 or even into the next decade before Aloy’s third adventure gets released.
Which is insane when you consider how successful the games have been. Sony themselves say the franchise has sold more than 40 million copies combined, and since both spin-off games sold barely anything, that means the mainline titles are responsible. And yet Sony put a third game on the back burner to pursue this live-service venture.
My gut feeling is that the project Schreier mentions getting evaluated at the end of the year is likely Horizon 3, and that it will finally be getting the focus it needs as Horizon Hunters Gathering is transformed into a much smaller project.
Regardless of Horizon 3’s timeline, this whole thing is another major blow for Sony’s attempt to enter the live service market. On its own, wanting to tackle the live service market is not bad, but Sony has made every bad decision possible in its quest, and in doing so has set back multiple major studios by years of time.
Sony has cancelled live service games in the God of War, Spider-Man and The Last of Us franchises. Meanwhile, Bungie – the company bought because of its live service success – is struggling to get Marathon established as a big player. Low sales and low player numbers plague Marathon, all while Destiny 3 continues to be played despite active support ending.
What a bloody mess.
