Sony and NCSoft have reportedly struck a deal to create a Horizon MMORPG.
According to news siteMTN, the project will be developed by the South Korean company behind the Lineage and Guild Wars MMO series and target the global market as part ofSony’s push into live service games.
NCSoftis currently recruiting developers to work on the title, which is said to be listed as ‘Project H’ in job ads.
A statement from NCsoft’s global communication office reportedly read (viaGoogleTranslate): “It is difficult to confirm information about unpublished projects that are currently under development.”
VGC has contactedSonyfor comment on this report.
Guerrilla Games, the Sony-owned studio behind 2017’sHorizon Zero Dawnand this year’s sequel Horizon Forbidden West, has long planned to expand Horizon into multiplayer, VGC understands.
Sources previously told VGC that co-op was initially planned for the first Horizon game but was ultimately scrapped so the development team could focus on other areas of the title.
They said Sony had also been keen to include co-op in Forbidden West, but Guerrilla decided to save the feature for a future project, which they believed would either be a standalone online spin-off, or Horizon 3.
Last yearGuerrilla was staffing up for an online game, although it’s unclear if the title in question was a Horizon one.
Among the roles advertised on the studio’s website was a senior social systems designer position, whose job would involve engaging players in “social interactions to create lasting relationships, and where compatible… create Guild-like groups to explore together”.
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Another job position for a senior game writer – which may or may not be related to the same project – was seeking an individual with “extensive knowledge of stories and narrative design in open-world RPG games, online games, and MMORPGs” to create “mission, quest writing and narrative design”.
Horizon Call of the Mountainwill be a PlayStation VR2 launch titlein February 2023, and aHorizon Zero Dawn remaster for PS5is reportedly in development too.
Sony is alsoworking with Netflix on a TV adaptation of Horizon.
