Guerrilla Games Horizon

Sony’s bet on live-service games has been magnificent. More than 12 live-service games in development, millions of dollars flushed down the toilet (remember that Bungie cost more than $3 billion), and years later most of those live-service games have been cancelled, several studios have been closed and, unfortunately, there have been countless layoffs. Hermen Hulst is lasting too long.

Sony’s grotesque management over the last few years is not over. Jason S. has revealed the reason why Horizon: Hunter Gathering disappeared from the radar after being announced earlier this year. The game has been rebooted to remove its live-service component and offer a more traditional cooperative experience. Player feedback was overwhelming, and Guerrilla has decided to rethink development to offer a more conventional multiplayer experience, with a beginning and an end. The Dutch studio has six months to convince executives that this reboot is the right way to get the project back on track. As this is now a smaller-scale title, some developers have been reassigned to another project that will also be evaluated at the end of the year. It doesn’t look good and, unfortunately, it smells like layoffs.

Another fiasco that has also had an impact on Horizon 3. It seems that this title has been stalled for years and has been in development with a small team. Just imagine where the resources went instead of putting them into a franchise that has sold millions of copies. This installment has not yet entered full production, so if it eventually comes out, it would arrive during the next generation, but not during its first few years.

I’m waiting for the layoffs among the executives. After all, they are the ones making these decisions.