Earlier this year, Sony announced it was canceling multiple PlayStation Studios games amid lay offs that affect 900 employees worldwide. One game that made the culling was the unannounced Horizon multiplayer game. It seems this project will be Guerrilla‘s next release, despite Sony’s failures within the live service landscape.
Horizon multiplayer game one of the few that hasn’t been canceled from Sony’s live service initiative
On a recent episode of Spawn Wave’s Spawncast, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier gave a small update on the Horizon multiplayer game. According to the reporter, the multiplayer game is the next entry in the popular franchise with “a lot of people” working on the upcoming game. The next single player Horizon game is a “ways off.”
“And their plan…I mean, Horizon Online is their next product, not whatever the third single player game, looks like. So, that one may be ways off,” says Schreier in response to Spawn Wave’s concerns about the unannounced game.
“Yeah, I mean like, PlayStation’s like live service initiative was no joke, everybody was like it’s live service games all around,” Schreier continues. “Horizon is one of the few ones that hasn’t been canceled or hasn’t come out and flopped the way Concord did and so…yeah. A lot of questions. A lot of people are working on that.”
Sony’s commitment to live service is a bit perplexing considering its track record. At the end of last year, Naughty Dog formally canceled The Last of Us Online due to the impact it would have on the studio. Along with Concord’s infamous delisting from last month, and the aforementioned cancellation of multiple games, it is concerning that the company continues to fling stuff at a wall in hopes that something sticks.
With that being said, Sony did find success with Helldivers 2. The Arrowhead Game Studios’ game sold millions of copies on PS5 and PC, and garnered critical acclaim. However, this is just one game from Sony’s live service push that has seen success.
(Source: Spawn Wave)