Horizon Zero Dawn live service spin-off revealed ahead of new State of Play

Sony’s long-rumoured Horizon multiplayer game gets its first proper trailer demonstrating its new art style and gameplay.

In late 2022, Guerrilla Games announced it was working on a multiplayer spin-off of its Horizon games, via job listings that described it as something akin to Capcom’s Monster Hunter series.

Aside from a leak that suggested the game would feature a cartoonier art style, compared to the main games, there haven’t been any updates on it. A completely separate Horizon multiplayer game was announced in Novembe – an MMO by South Korean studio NCSoft – but until nothing on Guerrilla’s game.

Rather than wait until the next rumoured State of Play, that’s supposed to air this month, Sony and Guerrilla Games have just gone ahead and announced Horizon Hunters Gathering via a lowkey blog post and video.

Unlike the PC-only Horizon Steel Frontiers, Hunters Gathering is billed as a co-op action game that will launch for PlayStation 5 and PC (complete with cross-play and cross-progression), where up to three players work together to battle Horizon’s many mechanical beasties.

Guerrilla already seems to know that the cartoony aesthetics will prove controversial, as studio director Jan-Bart Van Beek is quick to justify it after sharing a cinematic teaser.

‘Yes, we’re going with a very different look here and that’s very much by design,’ Van Beek explains, saying that since Hunters Gathering is a ‘very dynamic co-op game’ focused on teams, they wanted ‘an art style that really matches that energy.’

We imagine the goal is also to attract a broader audience and try to appeal to younger players (given how Fortnite-esque it looks in places), but Guerrilla already tried marketing Horizon to kids with Lego Horizon Adventures and that was a complete flop.

The gameplay at least looks to be in-line with the main games, like Horizon Forbidden West, but flashier and with multiple players combining their skills.

Unlike the MMO, you don’t get to build your own character and instead pick one of multiple pre-made characters, each with their own weapons and playstyles. Which seems to make it essentially a hero shooter.

Guerrilla has so far confirmed two gameplay modes: Machine Incursion, where you fend off waves of machines, culminating in a boss fight, and Cauldron Descent, which sounds like a roguelite in how you explore ever-changing rooms and complete different trials.

While there’s no release date yet, there will be a beta playtest that runs at the end of this month, so if you want to participate you’ll need to sign up for the PlayStation Beta Programme.

There will be a story campaign in the final release, one that can be enjoyed solo, with Guerrilla promising ‘new mysteries, characters, and threats,’ and that the narrative will continue after launch with subsequent updates.

Not to be cynical, but similar language was used to drum up excitement for Concord, and you all know how that turned out. Granted, Hunters Gathering has the advantage of being connected to an established franchise but there’s no mention of whether it’ll be free-to-play – although most Sony live service titles are not.

On the bright side, this must be a game that Sony has some measure of faith in, as it’s one of the only live service projects the company hasn’t scrapped in recent months.

Guerrilla insists it’s still committed to single-player games, so you don’t need to worry about Horizon 3 being abandoned, but the studio has no updates to share on that front.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the Hunters Gathering unveil is that it happened at almost exactly the same time as today’s Nintendo Direct, which seems unnecessarily churlish, and overconfident, on Sony’s part.

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