Highly anticipated: Sony and NCSoft have officially announced the next installment in the Horizon franchise. Titled Horizon Steel Frontiers, it marks the first MMORPG set in the Horizon universe and will launch on PC, Android, and iOS. Curiously, the announcement makes no mention of a PS5 version, despite Sony's role as a co-developer.
Horizon Steel Frontiers is being developed by South Korean video game company NCSoft (known for Guild Wars and Lineage) in partnership with Sony-owned Guerrilla Games. The title is a multiplayer adaptation of the Horizon universe, featuring character customization, cooperative machine hunting, large-scale strategic battles, and competitive player-vs-player elements.
The game is set in a region called "Deathlands," a desert landscape inspired by Arizona and New Mexico in a post-apocalyptic US. While Horizon's signature robotic monsters serve as the primary antagonists, players will not assume the role of Aloy, as in previous entries. Instead, they will create and control custom machine hunters tasked with destroying the evil robots.
The game brings back multiple tribes from the original Horizon world, including Nora, Tenakth, Utaru, and Oseram. Players can choose their tribe and customize their character's appearance, adjusting body type, hair, makeup, and more. While other tribes from the broader Horizon franchise will appear, initial character creation focuses on the four main playable tribes.
Players will share the frontier with thousands of others, sometimes collaborating to bring down the machines and at other times competing against rival tribes to control scarce resources. The combat system follows the familiar Horizon mechanics, encouraging teamwork, environmental strategy, and scavenging weapons left behind by defeated machines.
According to Jan-Bart van Beek, studio director at Guerrilla Games, Horizon Steel Frontiers is primarily designed for mobile devices and will be available on both Android and iOS. It will also launch on PC via NCSoft's Purple platform. However, the absence of a PS5 version has frustrated fans, many of whom criticized Sony on social media for overlooking its own console.
No official release date has been announced, but during NCSoft's Q3 2025 earnings call earlier this week, executives expressed confidence that the game could launch in 2026 or early 2027. Executive producer Sung-Gu Lee added that the team is working diligently to release the game "as soon as possible."
Horizon Steel Frontiers confirmed for PC, Android, and iOS, but no PS5 version planned
