According to a recent report from a reliable insider, PlayStation is overhauling and potentially canceling the next Horizon game. Developers at studio Guerrilla Games reportedly have through December to hit a more impressive milestone, following a pivot away from being a live-service game, or the title may be outright canceled.
This news is no doubt surprising, at least to a degree, because of how popular Guerrilla Games’ Horizon franchise is. Horizon Zero Dawn first released in 2017 and catapulted Aloy into mascot status alongside features like God of War‘s Kratos. It tends to have bad release timing and maybe a degree of open-world fatigue can draw the mainline titles back, but many fans are looking forward to the final confrontation in Horizon 3.
Horizon Hunters Gathering May Be Canceled After December 2026
Ahead of then, however, Guerrilla Games has been working on the publicly announced, live-service game Horizon Hunters Gathering. In it, the story would unfold across seasons as players choose unique playable Hunters, squad up in groups of three, and face the iconic Machine Threat present throughout the franchise. However, a recent report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier claims that PlayStation is overhauling the game following negative feedback in player testing. The report claims that Guerrilla has been working on this pivot since June, with the current plan being to remove the live-service aspect and turn it into a more traditional co-op game with a far smaller scope. In other words, it would be a one-and-done co-op spin-off game ahead of Horizon 3.
Scratch & Peek
Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as
possible.
While the game is not yet canceled, the report reveals that a staff meeting on Wednesday confirmed the studio has through December of this year to impress PlayStation execs with the next major milestone. If not, it is heavily implied the game is in danger of being canceled, with developers also looking at new reassignments later this year. The ultimate fate of Horizon Hunters Gathering remains to be seen, but at the very least, it’s clear that this is not good news for Guerrilla devs.
Unfortunately, Horizon 3 is not coming anytime soon either. Per Bloomberg’s sources, most developers at the studio began working on Horizon Hunters Gather immediately after the second game, Horizon Forbidden West, released in 2022. Horizon 3 is the next single-player Horizon game but has only had a small team working on it. It is years away from release—despite the cliffhanger ending of Horizon Forbidden West.
Horizon Hunters Gathering was canceled as part of PlayStation’s push for live service games, which, at one point, consisted of releasing 12 live-service games by March 2026. Beyond even the aggressive monetization that can make a successful live-service game essentially print money, the fact remains that gamers only have so much time to dedicate to the beloved hobby, and most can probably only juggle a couple at a time. Live-service games are a hard sale on their best days, and unfortunately, PlayStation has not had the best day with this live-service push. Multiple live-service PlayStation games have been canceled, including live-service Spider-Man and God of War games, and Horizon has one last chance to not end up on that pile, it seems.
