Horizon Zero Dawn fans heartbroken over cancelled sequel

PlayStation should never have forced developers into crafting live-service titles.

You can somewhat understand the industry’s pursuit of a live-service hit. Who wouldn’t want a slice of Fortnite’s lucrative pie?

But it was a tad drastic for Sony to greenlight over 10 live-service titles, especially as it’s not particularly something the company is known for doing well.

That all-in approach has very clearly backfred with the vast majority of those planned titles now having been cancelled.

Of course, Concord did get to feel the warm light of day, albeit only for 12 days.

Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us multiplayer, Firesprite’s live-service Twisted Metal entry, Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man multiplayer, a live-service entry from Bend Studio, and a God of War live-service title from Bluepoint Games are just a few of the projects to have now been cancelled.

I’ve just named five fantastic studios who have spent several years wasting time on doomed projects – projects that were more likely than not forced upon them.

And now another one seemingly bites the dust as it’s being reported that a Horizon Zero Dawn MMO has been cancelled too.

This tidbit comes from Korean publication MTN (as per Eurogamer) who explained that work on a number of projects at NCSoft had ceased following a “feasibility review”.

This supposedly includes the aforementioned Horizon MMO.

I want to make it clear that this is not to be confused with the Horizon multiplayer offering that’s in the works at Guerrilla Games – some Fortnite-esque gameplay of which leaked a while back.

Still, that hardly softens the blow.

“Cancelling every online game and MMO is a f**king huge overcorrection. This universe would’ve been great to experience with others,” wrote one disappointed fan on Twitter.

“Just focus all that money and resources on Horizon 3,” commented someone with slightly more optimism.

Of course, until anything is confirmed by Sony or NCSoft, do take this with a pinch of salt.

It seems clear though that for PlayStation, the future is single-player.