There’s some concerning news about another Sony game. But this time, this was a project that Sony never even announced.
Two years ago, Korean news website MTN reported that NCSoft was making a Horizon MMO for Sony. NCSoft is best known for 2000s era MMOs Guild Wars and Lineage II, and so they did have the reputation to make such games.
We should be clear that this is completely separate from the rumored live service Horizon game that is being made by Guerrilla Games. While Sony officially confirmed that Guerilla is making a live service game, they have never officially announced or confirmed the NCSoft Horizon MMO.
Still, we have learned so much about the NCSoft MMO that it seems absolutely legitimate. Kurakasis posted several details about the game a year ago, such as that it’s being made on Unreal 5, and that it was planned for PC and mobile. As of September 2023, there were 140 people working on the game.
Unfortunately, we reported last year that NCSoft was going through bad business last October. They cancelled multiple games, spun off several projects, and unfortunately, laid off staff.
This takes us to today, as ResetERA poster –R shared a new report that NCSoft has cancelled the Horizon MMO. Based on –R’s translation, Sung-Gu Lee, who was all named by Kurakasis, had all the projects he was running cancelled. NCSoft put their projects through a feasibility review, as they are apparently in Ubisoft levels of trouble.
Interestingly, –R’s source is the same outlet that reported on the Horizon MMO from the start, MTN. It’s certainly sad news for them to be the same source to confirm the game’s start and end, and Sony never even announced it to the public. It would be worthwhile to see if Sony acknowledges this news.
That makes another Sony game that just got cancelled. Since Sony never officially confirmed it, we don’t have that much information on how much Sony was involved in this Horizon MMO’s development as well. How much did they pay NCSoft, and subsequently how much of that money has just come to nothing? Did their business deal with NCSoft involve buying a stake in them, and if so, how much did they lose from owning part of NCSoft? And did Sony once again have to lay off some of their own employees because of this?
We would certainly question it if Sony let NCSoft keep going on this project without direct involvement, or at least their monitoring. If they saw that NCSoft’s finances were struggling earlier, they should have cancelled the game earlier, or replaced the studio, or even spend to keep NCSoft afloat. We won’t be able to assess the damage until Sony confirms it themselves, but we imagine Hiroki Totoki didn’t like it when he found out about this.
