Horizon 3 'far away' after PlayStation u-turns on live-service co-op spin off

The future of the beloved Horizon franchise has been cast into doubt as new reports claim that the third mainline instalment has been silently delayed after being held back by the carnage of a negative Horizon Hunters Gathering playtest.

Zero Dawn and Forbidden West are two of the best PlayStation action RPGs, up there with the God of War series, The Last of Us' double-header, and Ghost of Tsushima and Yotei.

Being everything that we ever wanted from a sassy Katniss Everdeen-like heroine with a skill for wielding archaic weapons, the series was only set to get better with an upcoming third instalment.

Presumably, following franchise icons Aloy, Sekya, and friends, the plot would bring us towards the endgame boss fight with Nemesis, a rogue AI set on destroying Earth.

But despite once being claimed to be 'nearly' here, new reports say that the game has been delayed.

The reason: Horizon Hunter's Gathering.

Horizon 3 reportedly stuck behind new co-op spin-off, PlayStation axes its live-service plans

Despite Horizon 3 being high on the priority list, Guerrilla Games announced a magical cartoon-anime multiplayer spin-off in Hunter's Gathering, which promised to be a three-person live-service game, with new quests dropping frequently for players to continue scaling and grinding.

Initially, the premise looked incredible.

But a report from Bloomberg recently revealed that the first wave of playtests was so negative that PlayStation has lost hope in it being the next Arc Raiders.

Sony

Instead, the report suggests that the spin-off title, which most of Guerrilla is focused on shipping, will pivot to a more modest co-op multiplayer experience with a much smaller scope, as well as featuring a campaign. The live-service element is set to be scrapped entirely. Ouch.

"PlayStation is rebooting the online game Horizon Hunters Gathering after negative playtest feedback. New plan is smaller scope, more traditional co-op multiplayer, no more live service," the report claims.

Again, ouch.

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What's worse is that the developers poured their resources into Hunters Gathering and put Horizon 3 on the back burner, which means that the trilogy game has been pushed back.

"Almost all of Guerrilla Games has been working on Horizon Hunters Gathering for the last few years, and the next mainline single-player Horizon game is still far, far away," the report added.

As a PlayStation exclusive, Sony holds the cards here, and it's clear that the franchise is feeling the effect of the publisher's desire for live-service excellence - weirdly, that includes stoking favour into Marathon instead.

Still, there's no reason that Horizon 3 will suffer in quality; it just means we won't be seeing Aloy back in action any time soon.