Horizon Steel Frontiers is Sony's latest mobile-first attempt to crack the live service nut
Guerilla Games' smash hit, Horizon Zero Dawn, released in 2017, was well received by its target audience, a success that also carried over to its long-awaited PC release later in 2020. The game saw players scavenge a dangerous post-apocalyptic Earth where nature had reclaimed the land, now ruled by AI creatures that seem both organic and machine.
South Korean-based studio NCSoft, the creators of widely popular MMOs such as Guild Wars and Lineage, have teamed up with Guerrilla Games, the creators of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, and Sony to make an MMO based on the Horizon universe. Their announcement came in the form of a 10-minute video alongside a 3-minute gameplay trailer.
The announcement video, which comes in the format of a visually stunning cinematic video, with the unique styles fans have come to love from NCSoft titles, followed by developer diary-style talks from both NCSoft co-chairman Taekjin Kim and the studio director of Guerrilla Games, Jan-Bart van Beek, and NCSoft’s Sung-Gu Lee the executive producer of Horizon Steel Frontiers, who discuss their shared passion for the Horizon world and their thoughts and goals, going forward in this new joint venture.
Players will take on the role of Machine Hunters who scavenge the deadlands for resources and tech. Players can choose to work together to complete objectives and take down multiple powerful enemies, or turn their sights on each other. The game will offer complete character customizations, social mechanics, and dungeon/raid-style mecha-boss fights akin to Capcom’s Monster Hunter games. The game will be playable on mobile devices and on PC through Purple, NCSoft’s own gaming platform.
The announcement comes after rumours that Guerrilla Games was working on another multiplayer game, spotted on Reddit 6 years ago in a job posting for a programmer with experience in multiplayer to work on an "epic open world game," as stated in the now-removed listing. Guerrilla Games later confirmed these rumours in yet another job listing, this time via Twitter, in late 2022.
Horizon Steel Frontiers has no release date yet. Still, fans of the franchise have much to enjoy, with the release of a remaster of Horizon Zero Dawn back in 2024, along with a sequel to Horizon Forbidden West, currently in development, and a live-action Horizon movie set to come out sometime in 2027.
