Sony’s shock announcement: Horizon Steel Frontiers is a major MMORPG for mobile and PC, mystifying fans by officially skipping a PlayStation 5 release

The next Horizon game is on the way, but it won't be like prior entries in the PlayStation franchise.

Sony has announced Horizon Steel Frontiers, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the world of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West. It's being primarily developed by NCSOFT with oversight from the series' creators at Guerrilla Games.

Like its predecessors, Horizon Steel Frontiers tasks players with hunting down powerful machines with a variety of traps and weapons in a post-apocalyptic Earth. Unlike the previous games, it's a multiplayer experience, and it's in development primarily for mobile.

While players on Windows PC aren't being left out thanks to NCSOFT's Purple launcher, no PlayStation 5 console version has been announced.

You can check out the announcement trailer for the game below:

[Horizon Steel Frontiers] Announcement Video - YouTube

Watch On

"From the very beginning of creating this franchise, we've imagined the Horizon universe as one that could be experienced in many different ways," says Jan-Bart van Beek, studio director at Guerrilla Games.

"The core concept of Horizon Steel Frontiers can be summed up in one phrase: the thrill of taking down colossal machines," says Sung-Gu Lee, executive producer on Horizon Steel Frontiers at NCSOFT.

Horizon Steel Frontiers lets players build their own hunter from any of the existing tribes, so while one player might be part of the Tenakth, another could hail from the Oseram.

The team at NCSOFT also shared a gameplay overview trailer, providing an example of how a machine hunt could play out:

[Horizon Steel Frontiers] Gameplay Trailer - YouTube

Watch On

PlayStation's games as a service initiative continues

It seems like a lifetime ago, but Sony once publicly stated that it was aiming for PlayStation Studios to have a dozen live service games out at once by 2026.

Whether they failed to be officially greenlit (such as a multiplayer Spider-Man game internally pitched at Insomniac Games) or were canceled after years of development (The Last of Us Online at Naughty Dog), the majority of these games have not come to fruition.

One serious bright spot arrived last year with Arrowhead Game Studios' Helldivers 2. The game quickly sold over 12 million copies on PlayStation 5 and PC, and was brought to Xbox Series X|S earlier this year, with Sony praising the game's performance on Xbox so far.

Time will tell how Horizon Steel Frontiers pans out, but it'll certainly be interesting to watch, especially since it's not the only multiplayer Horizon game on the way.

Another Horizon multiplayer is on the way for PlayStation

While this Horizon game won't be available on PlayStation consoles, another multiplayer title in development will. Guerrilla Games is currently working on its next Horizon title, and the fact that this title will be a multiplayer, co-op-focused game is an open secret, with some extremely early gameplay footage leaking years ago.

Per files that became available when Insomniac Games was illegally breached back in December 2023, this game is called "Horizon Hunters Gathering," though little else is known at this time. The game has yet to be officially announced, but it does raise some fascinating questions now that Horizon Steel Frontiers has been announced.

Outside of platform focus, what will set these games apart? How will each game be monetized? What will the release dates look like, and will there be overlap? We'll have to wait to learn more.

In the meantime, Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and Horizon Forbidden West are both currently available on Windows PC (Steam and the Epic Games Store) and PlayStation 5.

FAQ

Follow Windows Central on Google News to keep our latest news, insights, and features at the top of your feeds!