Summary
- The Horizon multiplayer spin-off that's currently in the works at Guerrilla may skip the PS5.
- A recently surfaced Guerrilla job listing reviewed by The Best War Games suggests that the game is a "next-gen" release.
- The PS6 is projected to arrive in 2028.
Guerrilla Games' Horizon multiplayer spin-off may not release during the current console generation. Instead, some newly emerged evidence indicates that the upcoming Horizon game is targeting a PS6 release.
The still-unnamed Horizon multiplayer game was confirmed to be in the works at the December 2022 edition of The Game Awards. Little else has been shared about the project ever since, with Guerrilla only sporadically reaffirming that the work on it continues.
Guerrilla's Horizon Multiplayer Game Will Use Systems from Zero Dawn and Forbidden West
Some newly emerged insight into Guerrilla's multiplayer game reveals its genre of choice and yields a tech connection to the mainline Horizon titles.
Horizon Multiplayer Spin-Off May Skip the PS5
Since the game was announced just two years following the PS5's release, around the time when Sony finally managed to resolve the console's pandemic-induced global shortages, it was widely assumed to be targeting the current-generation system. But that may have not been the case, or the initial plan changed in the meantime, as suggested by a recently publicized job ad for a principal producer at Guerrilla. The listing, reviewed by The Best War Games, describes a role on a project that seeks to deliver a "next-gen online experience." Of all the Horizon games that are currently confirmed or rumored to be in the works at the Dutch studio, that description only matches the upcoming multiplayer spin-off.
Since the PS5 is pushing four nowadays, it's somewhat unlikely that this newly published ad would still be calling it a "next-gen" system if it were indeed referring to it. Taking the language of the listing at face value, it would appear that the Horizon multiplayer spin-off is still years away from going gold, and may ultimately end up skipping the PS5. Such a turn of events would be consistent with recent macro trends in the industry, most notably the fact that AAA game development cycles have been getting longer and more complex since the 2010s.
PS6 Projected To Be Targeting a 2028 Release
The next, tenth generation of consoles is currently projected to arrive in 2028. Sony itself recently reinforced that estimate, if only indirectly, when its CFO Hiroki Totoki said that the PS5 has entered "the latter half" of its life cycle as of early 2024. Regardless of the exact year when the next PlayStation console is planned to hit the market, historical precedent suggests that Sony will time its launch to coincide with the holiday season.
If the Horizon multiplayer spin-off is indeed planned to skip the PS5, then there's a chance that Horizon 3 could beat it to the market. The third mainline entry in the franchise was confirmed to be in development in May 2023. Guerrilla last mentioned the project in April 2024, when it said that the work on "Aloy's next adventure" continues. In the meantime, another series spin-off in the form of LEGO Horizon Adventures is set to arrive in late 2024. South Korean gaming giant NCSoft is also rumored to be working on a Horizon MMO right now.
The Horizon franchise follows Aloy as she is forced to contend with a series of powerful, towering robotic creatures in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The third-person action-RPG has already seen a sequel with Horizon: Forbidden West and gives players the freedom to explore the open world as they see fit.
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