We have some interesting rumors about PlayStation’s live service plans, and the pending future of the Horizon franchise.
As reported by WCCFTech, Jason Schreier shared this information as a guest in the latest episode of the Spawn Wave podcast:
“Horizon Online is their next project, not whatever the third single player game looks like, so that one might be a ways off. Sony’s PlayStation’s live service initiative was no joke.
Everybody was like, it’s live service games all around, and Horizon is one of the few that hasn’t been canceled or hasn’t come out and flopped the way Concord did.
So yeah, a lot of questions there, but a lot of people are working on that online project.”
Schreier also speculated on what Guerrilla Games plans to do with the Horizon franchise in general. As we know, Sony recently unveiled Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, following the announcement of LEGO Horizon Adventures earlier this month.
Now, you may not have realized this, but both of these titles are essentially telling the same story, and are also coming out very close to each other. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is coming for PlayStation 5 this October 31, 2024, and LEGO Horizon Adventures will come to PlayStation 5, PC, and Switch on November 14, 2024. That’s only a two week gap between them.
Of course, both releases are intended to expand the appeal of the Horizon franchise, in their own different ways. Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered is being pitched as the new definitive version of the game, with considerable improvements over the 2017 breakout hit. On the other hand, LEGO Horizon Adventures is looking to get younger gamers and families interested in Sony’s next big franchise.
Schreier says he isn’t sure what Sony plans to do if both of those games don’t turn out to sell well. As he points out, after Concord, it isn’t clear that PlayStation gamers want to play a live service Horizon Online title. So could that lead to Horizon Online getting cancelled.
But therein lies the rub for Sony. PlayStation gamers who are certain Sony will do best making single player games only need to recognize that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was a big red flag to Sony that their old strategy isn’t going to work anymore. That game broke record first party sales for the console, and it still wasn’t enough to ‘meet expectations.’
And we can’t talk about the phrase ‘meet expectations’ like it’s an unknowable secret industry euphemism anymore. Not meeting expectations means games need to be made with smaller budgets, studios who made best-selling games have to fire employees, and console games need to go to PC and more platforms.
When Sony greenlit titles like God of War for the PlayStation 2 and Uncharted 2 for the PlayStation 3, those were the games that were made with inflated budgets, and took years, in their time. They thought they could keep doing it like that anymore, because they would make that money back.
So Sony will absolutely keep trying to push a live service game on their fans until they find something that hits. They may even get around to making that The Last Of Us Online game after all. But until they find that hit, Sony will keep pushing and finding it.
