A major development has come to light regarding Guerrilla’s long-in-development live-service Horizon game, Horizon Hunters Gathering. After negative player feedback from the game’s various tests, the Amsterdam-based studio has been “working to reboot the game since June,” Bloomberg reported.
The plan to reboot the game involves removing its live-service elements and shifting it to become “more of a traditional cooperative multiplayer game with a story mode and far smaller scope,” the report said.
The report went on to say Guerrilla now has through December to “impress executives” in order for development to continue. Due to the paring down of the scope in the reboot, some developers working on Horizon Hunters Gathering are being “reassigned to a different project” that is due for evaluation by higher-ups by the end of the year.
What that other game is remains a mystery, but the report added that a “tiny team” at Guerrilla is now “plotting out the next single-player Horizon game.” This game is, however, “years away” from being done, sources said.
What is Horizon Hunters Gathering?
Announced in February this year, Horizon Hunters Gathering is a multiplayer game set in the Horizon universe, allowing up to three players in a group.
It features a markedly different look from the main Horizon series, sporting more vibrant visuals and giving off Fortnite energy in terms of its looks.
Players will work together to fight the deadly, animal-like machines that the Horizon series is known for. Guerrilla has said the game’s combat is “tactical, reactive, and deeply skill-based.”
This was how the game was described upon its announcement, at least. It remains to be seen exactly how Horizon Hunters Gathering could change, beyond stripping out the live-service elements, given the reboot.
Sony’s struggles in live-service
Like many other companies, PlayStation pushed into the very popular, potentially lucrative, and very competitive, live-service market by making a number of bets, and not all of them have paid off.
At one point, Sony was planning a dozen live-service games, but the company later halved that in a bid for quality over quantity. Some of the games that have been canceled so far have included The Last of Us Online, along with a live-service God of War and another live-service title from Bend.
There have been successes, too, mostly notably Helldivers 2. The game sold more than 20 million copies. Sony’s multiplayer game Concord, on the other hand, failed to find an audience and was quickly taken offline, with its studio shuttered. Many are also wondering about the fate of the live-service game Fairgame$, following a number of key staff departures.