Sony confirms it still doesn't understand live-service games as it reboots Horizon Hunters Gathering
Sony just can't seem to understand what makes a live service game tick as it changes course on yet another IP
Whether it's cancelling, discontinuing, or rebooting a game, Sony just can't seem to get their live-service strategy under control. According to a new report from Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, the latest title to trip over its feet before it can get out the door is Guerrilla Games' Horizon Hunters Gathering.
Acting as a canon follow-up to 2022's Horizon Forbidden West, Horizon Hunters Gathering was initially revealed as a 3rd-person action co-op game where teams of up to 3 players (or 1 player and 2 NPC Hunters) gather to take on challenging missions facing off against the robotic dinosaurs of the far-flung future of the great American West.
In his report, however, Schreier states that Hunters Gathering has been in the process of rebooting and having its live-service elements removed following "negative player feedback" since June of this year. The game will become a "traditional cooperative multiplayer game with a story mode and a far smaller scope." Schreier then goes on to say that the team will be split up to accommodate that smaller scope: some will stay to try to ship the new version of the product, while others are moving on to another, unannounced project. Hopefully, the team can be spared the game industry's recent trend of massive, devastating layoffs.
Horizon Hunters Gathering was announced back in February of this year and marks the first big departure from Guerilla's work since they first shipped Horizon Zero Dawn back in 2017. The game is undeniably gorgeous with it's a fresh artstyle, but it's class-based roguelike mechanics, titular "Hunters Gathering" social hub, and moment-to-moment gameplay felt too familiar in the initial trailers. While I love to get sucked into the replayability of roguelikes, and despite the clear passion on display by the developers, Horizon Hunters Gathering looked like it was trying to fill the void left by Dauntless which itself struggled to find an audience and was eventually shut down last year. Hopefully a reboot will keep this game from a similar fate.
While we're here talking about it, I cannot recommend watching the companion video, which "One Take" Schreier himself posted this morning (linked above), enough. Go give it a watch for more insight and his take on what this means for Sony going forward, and how badly they keep shooting themselves in the foot.
To Sony: In case y'all forgot, you do still own Bungie and their IP (I've heard that Destiny series is pretty good?). Maybe if you throw a few more hundreds of millions of dollars at the wall, something can eventually stick around for more than a year or two.
