- Horizon Hunters Gathering is reportedly being overhauled to remove its live-service features after poor player feedback
- The game is being turned into a traditional cooperative multiplayer game with a smaller scope and story mode
- Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier has also revealed details about several live-service PlayStation games that were canceled
Guerilla Games is reportedly overhauling Horizon Hunters Gathering and stripping out the game’s live-service elements following negative feedback.
According to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier, sources “familiar with the company’s plans” claim that the Horizon Zero Dawn studio is removing the project’s live-service features after “poor” playtest feedback and reimagining it into a traditional cooperative multiplayer game with a story mode “and a far smaller scope.”
They said the game isn’t canceled yet, but Guerrilla told staff in a meeting on August 19 that they have until December to impress executives with their next milestone, while many developers will be reassigned to a different, unknown project that will also be evaluated at the end of this year.
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Schreier offered a few more details in his latest YouTube video where he discussed Sony‘s live-service initiative, explaining that Horizon Hunters Gathering, which was announced earlier this year, has been undergoing playtesting throughout the year, including in February and May.
While still in development, this is the latest PlayStation live-service project that has failed to get off the ground following a few years of Sony attempting to get its first-party single-player studios to dip their toes into the multiplayer genre.
According to Schreier, several more behind-the-scenes projects have been canceled, among them the long-rumored God of War live-service game from Bluepoint, the developer known for remaking and remastering older games like Shadow of the Colossus and Demon’s Souls, and which was shut down earlier this year.
The studio, which Schreier reported was also interested in developing a Bloodborne remake, helped Sony Santa Monica create God of War Ragnarok and soon after kicked off an online multiplayer live-service God of War game featuring Kratos’ son Atreus descending into Hades.
“I don’t remember all the specifics or exactly how it would work, but essentially it was designed for many players,” Schreier said, “So, I guess they could do their own kind of custom versions of Atreus or like aspects of Atreus. I’m not 100% sure how it would work, but that game did not pan out.”
In addition, Insomniac Games, best known for its Marvel’s Spider-Man games and launching Marvel’s Wolverine next month, was at one point developing an online Spider-Man title, which was ultimately scrapped.
“They’re one of the studios that has actually avoided the curse of not releasing anything in the PS5 era,” Schreier said, “But even they took a live service initiative. They were visited by the Nick Fury of PlayStation [about] doing a Spider-Man multiplayer game. It didn’t get very far, and they didn’t spend a ton of resources on it.
“They didn’t put a ton of money or time into it, which is why they have been able to release multiple games this generation.”
Schreier also touched on Naughty Dog’s canceled The Last of Us multiplayer game, which was in development for four years and canceled in 2023, which we learned earlier this year from game director Vinit Agarwal was 80% complete before the plug was pulled.
Sony’s live-service initiative has been a rough road; we’ve also seen games such as Concord canceled two weeks after launch following poor reception and Destiny 2, which was recently taken offline four years after the PlayStation company purchased its developer, Bungie.
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