Sony Overhauls Horizon Hunters Gathering After Playtests

Sony has made a decision that caught a lot of gamers off guard. Rather than shelving Horizon Hunters Gathering after a rocky start, the company appears to be giving the project a real opportunity to course-correct. For a game many assumed was quietly fading into the background, that's a notable vote of confidence, and it's worth digging into why Sony is choosing to invest in Horizon Hunters Gathering rather than moving on from it entirely.

According to an insider familiar with the situation, Sony's PlayStation division has reworked or wound down several of its live service multiplayer projects over the past few years, with some transitions handled more smoothly than others. Horizon Hunters Gathering, though, is getting a different path.

The overhaul trades live service ambitions for a scaled-back cooperative structure.

Instead of cancellation, the plan involves a significant overhaul following feedback from recent testing. The live service elements are reportedly being scaled back in favor of a more traditional cooperative experience, complete with a story mode and a tighter, more focused scope than what was originally envisioned.

The game hasn't been canceled, and the studio behind it has been given until December to show meaningful progress toward that new direction. That timeline is actually a pretty reasonable approach when you think about it. Rather than pulling the plug immediately after a difficult test period, Sony is giving the development team room to adjust, rebuild, and prove the concept can work in its new form.

Second chances like that aren't always guaranteed in this industry, and it says something that Horizon Hunters Gathering is getting one instead of being quietly shut down like so many other projects tend to be once early numbers come in soft.

Now, about that test period. Horizon Hunters Gathering recently ran a closed play test, and the turnout was modest. Checking the game's activity through Steam's tracking data, the concurrent numbers came in quite low, especially when you consider how much attention the Horizon franchise usually commands given its history as one of PlayStation's most recognizable single-player series.

Marathon's own numbers offer useful context for that weak turnout.

For comparison, Sony's other live service project currently in market, an extraction shooter from Bungie called Marathon, has also had a slow build finding its footing, though it's still pulling in noticeably more concurrent players than Horizon Hunters Gathering saw during its test window.

Granted, closed tests are limited by design, and a smaller pool of participants doesn't necessarily reflect how the finished product will land once it's polished and opened up to a wider audience. Still, it's a data point worth acknowledging as the studio heads into its next milestone, and it likely explains why executives felt a rework was the right call rather than a straight cancellation.

As for what the reworked version might actually look like, reports point toward stripping back most of the live service framework in favor of something closer to a cooperative, story-driven experience, similar in spirit to a smaller-scale Monster Hunter. That direction actually mirrors something players have been saying about Destiny 2 since its own live service chapter wrapped up.

A lot of longtime fans have mentioned how refreshing it feels to be free of the constant seasonal reset, where new gear stops making old builds obsolete, and progress finally feels permanent. Landing a great weapon roll or finishing a build now means it stays relevant, with no upcoming season threatening to power creep it into irrelevance.

That same permanence could become Horizon Hunters Gathering's biggest selling point.

If Horizon Hunters Gathering leans into that same philosophy, trading the live service treadmill for something more grounded and complete, it could end up resonating with a segment of players who've grown tired of constantly chasing the next update elsewhere in the genre.

There is a bit of a staffing wrinkle worth mentioning, though. Some developers originally attached to Horizon Hunters Gathering have reportedly shifted over to a separate, unannounced project within the studio. Meanwhile, the next mainline single-player Horizon title, the format that built the franchise's reputation in the first place, is said to still be early in development and years away from release.

It's a sign that Sony's internal teams are being spread across multiple priorities at once, with Horizon Hunters Gathering just one piece of a larger, evolving lineup rather than the sole focus of the studio. Whatever that unannounced project ends up being, it's clearly pulling in meaningful attention and resources from the team right now, and it will be interesting to see what eventually gets revealed.

It's also useful to look at this in the context of Sony's broader live service history. The multiplayer companion piece for The Last of Us didn't make it to release after years of work behind the scenes. A separate live service shooter had a brief run before closing down shortly after launch, becoming one of the more talked-about cautionary tales in recent gaming memory.

Sony's live service track record includes several other rocky projects too.

Marathon is still working to build momentum after its own launch. And Destiny 2, arguably Sony's most established live service property with more than a decade of history behind it, recently transitioned away from its live service model altogether, a shift that understandably stirred strong feelings among longtime fans and coincided with staffing changes at Bungie.

Taken together, it shows Sony has been willing to make tough calls across its live service portfolio rather than keeping every project running indefinitely regardless of performance, which makes the decision to specifically rebuild Horizon Hunters Gathering stand out even more as a deliberate, considered choice.

That's really what makes this moment interesting. Giving Horizon Hunters Gathering a defined runway to improve is a fair and sensible move, especially if the team has genuine ideas for the rework and a clear vision for what the finished game should feel like.

What makes it worth discussing, though, is the timing relative to Destiny 2's own trajectory over the past several months. Look at the numbers from its final expansion, referred to as Monument of Triumph, which launched to around 167,000 concurrent players.

Monument of Triumph's launch numbers tell an even bigger story.

That's a sharp jump compared to the previous two expansions, which brought in roughly 70,000 and 108,000 players respectively, despite heavy marketing pushes behind both releases across social media and video platforms. Monument of Triumph didn't just hold steady; it significantly outperformed what came before it, and player sentiment since launch has been largely positive across the community.

The wind-down of Destiny 2's live service model, though, was already set in motion before Monument of Triumph even released, meaning that surge in players came after the direction had already been decided internally. Even now, months later, Destiny 2 continues to post strong concurrent numbers on Steam.

At times, it runs close to some of the biggest live service titles currently available on the platform. It remains one of the more active games in its category. It's a reminder that player interest in Destiny 2 hasn't gone anywhere, even without the live service structure driving it forward season after season, and it adds an interesting layer to Sony's decision to prioritize a rebuild for Horizon Hunters Gathering during this same stretch of time.

There was also a report a while back suggesting some friction between Sony and Bungie tied to the studio's costly 3.6 billion dollar acquisition not delivering the returns executives had hoped for when the deal was first signed. At the time, it read mostly as speculation from outside observers.

Recent decisions seem to lend that acquisition friction report some credibility.

Looking at how things have unfolded since, including the choice to invest additional development time into Horizon Hunters Gathering while Destiny 2's live service chapter quietly closes out, it's understandable why some fans have connected those dots, even if there's no confirmed link between the two decisions and Sony hasn't commented directly on the matter.

Where things go from here for Horizon Hunters Gathering is genuinely worth watching closely. The studio has a clear runway, a defined new direction, and a deadline to show it's working before the next round of decisions gets made. Whether the reworked version can build the kind of player base that Destiny 2 continues to hold onto, even after its live service era officially ended, remains to be seen.

Given how much goodwill Destiny 2 still commands among its community, that's a high bar for Horizon Hunters Gathering to clear, but the coming months leading up to December should make it a lot clearer whether the rebuild is paying off the way Sony is hoping it will.