Another live game from Sony appears to be in trouble after reports of poor player feedback.
Sony’s Horizon multiplayer game appears to be in trouble. Developer Guerrilla Games is reportedly reducing the scope of Horizon Hunters Gatherremoving the live service elements and adding a story mode to make it more of a traditional cooperative game.
According to BloombergThe decision to revamp the game follows poor feedback from closed playtests that took place this year. Rather than cancel Horizon Hunters Gather Guerrilla reportedly gave developers until the end of the year “to impress executives with their next step.” Many of those who worked on the game are said to have been reassigned to another project, which will also be reviewed later this year.
Most of Guerrilla’s developers would have worked on Horizon Hunters Gather while a smaller team began work on the next mainline Horizon game. Thus, the continuation of Horizon Forbidden West it is still said that it will take “years to be completed”. A separate multiplayer Horizon game for PC and mobile, an MMO called Horizon Steel Bordersis managed externally by NCSoft.
It’s just the latest example of Sony’s push into live gaming proving largely disastrous, aside from the saving grace of the game’s success. Helldiverse 2. The company announced in 2022 that it planned to release 10 live-action games by March of this year, but then canceled a series of projects, some of which would be based on God of War and Spider-Man. In 2023, Naughty Dog canceled a Last of Us multiplayer game. Concord was a disaster. Even Sony’s purchase of Bungie didn’t go smoothly, with the studio ending active development on Bungie. Destiny 2 And Marathon was not the sure hit that the leaders were surely hoping for.
It’s frustrating to think that Sony could have released many more first-party games over the past few years if it hadn’t wasted an unfathomable amount of money and development resources chasing the riches of live gaming. But you never know, maybe Fairgame$ will be the next blockbuster Sony has been looking for in this space.
