A Failure to Look Forward To: Sony has tried multiple times to establish a successful gaming-as-a-service business, turning its traditional single-player fanbase into an endless stream of subscriptions and microtransactions. According to internal sources, the company's latest live service attempt is most likely going to fail as well.
Sony officially introduced Horizon Hunters Gathering (HHG) earlier this year. The game is set in the Horizon universe, but it replaces the traditional single-player formula with a live service, co-op action multiplayer design. Developed by Guerrilla Games, HHG was conceived as yet another attempt to create a successful live service experience. Now, unnamed sources said that HHG could turn into a new Concord-style failure sooner rather than later.
The sources told Bloomberg that HHG received negative feedback from the private beta testing sessions held in recent months. Sony executives have now decided to remove any live-service component from the experience, turning the game into a more traditional co-op multiplayer title. Story mode is back, and the game's scope is now much smaller than before.
Guerrilla developers have been working on HHG for a while, and the project has not been canceled just yet. However, the sources revealed that Sony's Amsterdam-based subsidiary now has until December to "impress" the executives. If the next game build does not satisfy the C-suites, HHG might be abandoned and most of the developers will be reassigned to another project, which will also go through a crucial evaluation phase by the end of the year.
Sony Interactive Entertainment wanted HHG to carry many of the elements found in successful live service/GAAS products. The game includes a few predefined classes of "Hunters" with specific abilities, weapons, and playstyles, and a roguelite perk system to further customize a Hunter. The game was expected to support cross-platform play on both PS5 and Windows PCs, with a maximum of three different players joining the online co-op sessions.
Within a few months, HHG might become yet another example of Sony being unable to break into the live service business with a successful product. After Concord's unprecedented fiasco, the Japanese gaming giant was forced to cancel multiple live service projects belonging to some of its most successful single-player franchises, including God of War, Spider-Man, and The Last of Us.
The sources said that these failed attempts have cost the corporation hundreds of millions of dollars already. Sony acquired Bungie to try and build on the Destiny franchise, but it failed there as well. Bungie is now focused on the Marathon project, but the extraction shooter with live-service elements is struggling as well.
Guerrilla has been working on Horizon Hunters Gathering for many years now, the sources confirmed. A small team was left to design the next single-player title in the Horizon franchise, but the project might take a while to materialize. Plans could eventually change, but Sony could still cancel HHG by this year's end.