PlayStation
Farewell to Horizon MMO: Sony cancels another of its controversial service games
After God of War and Bend Studio’s multiplayer project (Days Gone) went down the drain, PlayStation’s upcoming catalog suffers another loss, its eighth in two years.
Heads continue to roll at Sony. Projects continue to fall. As a result of Concord’s historic setback, the company has changed its strategy, completely turned around and stopped betting all its chips on the so-called games as a service (online and seasonal). What no one expected was that they would pull them all at once. Just a week ago it was leaked that it had canceled a multiplayer God of War and the new project (also of the same stick) of the creators of Days Gone. Now comes the news that he has put an end to the Horizon MMO he had in the works.
NCSoft, the South Korean developer that Sony admitted to having signed a deal with late last year (and which, among other things, is known for being the distributor of Guild Wars), has canceled three games (Project Pantera, Project H, and Project J), including, according to Tom Henderson, the vaunted Horizon MMO. It is now on the so-called “death list”:
All service games canceled by Sony
- Concord (closed with only a few months left)
- Horizon MMO (NCSoft)
- The Last of Us Online (Naughty Dog)
- Twisted Metal (Firesprite)
- Spider-Man: The Web (Insomniac Games)
- London Studio Game Service (SingStar, The Getaway)
- Game service from Bend Studio (Days Gone)
- God of War Multiplayer from Bluepoint Games
This string of failures helps explain why PlayStation 6 is just around the corner, and yet we all feel that PS5 barely had any exclusives and games that mattered. Between generational shifts, canceled projects, and their consequences on studios (closures and years without releases), it’s normal for many to refer to this as the “phantom generation”. In the last few hours, we even saw the legendary Shuhei Yoshida, Sony legend, assuring us that the existence of so many remasters today is to try to make money and secure the business after so many losses, and that we should please support them through these re-releases. Seeing is believing.
Another Horizon multiplayer in the works
Despite the news, Aloy diehards can breathe a sigh of relief. The studio of Horizon, Guerrilla Games, was also working on a new installment with multiplayer options (a priori cooperative) and that is still in progress at the studio’s headquarters. Although announced, little is known about the project, but some claim that it is closer than we think. Let’s knock on wood for better luck.
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