It's been a bad time for PlayStation live-service games, as now the Horizon MMO has reportedly been added to the growing list of canceled projects.
Last week, PlayStation reportedly canceled a live-service God of War game from Demon's Souls remake studio Bluepoint and cut a live service game from Bend Studios, the Days Gone developer. It's now been reported by MTN that some of NCSoft's games have been canceled, too, and ResetEra users believe one of the culled projects is the Horizon MMO.
According to translations provided by a ResetEra user, three of NCSoft's games have had their development halted following a "feasibility review." These are Pantera, H (thought to be the Horizon MMO), and J. Fortunately, it's reported that developers on these projects will be moved internally, not laid off like the devs at Jar of Sparks.
I'm not too sure what a live-service God of War game would look like, so it's not entirely surprising it got canceled, especially since Sony seems to be more cautious after the lackluster launch and subsequent cancelation of Concord, but a Horizon MMO could have been interesting. Guerrilla made a lush, rich world that seems ripe for the MMO space.
However, Elden Ring Nightreign is also due to launch this year, and who knows, it may have continued the Horizon curse and come out around the same time, so maybe Sony decided to cut its losses now. We don't know what goes on behind the scenes - work could have been behind schedule already, or maybe Sony didn't think it measured up to its expectations.
Whatever the case, it appears Sony is reneging on its live-service ambitions. I was always sceptical when the platform known for excellent single-player games announced it was going all in on volatile live-service titles. There are only so many hours in the week, and with behemoths like Destiny 2, Fortnite, and World of Warcraft already taking up our time, who can add more live-service games to their roster?
In the meantime, check out all of the other upcoming video game release dates to see what other titles you have to look forward to.
