Sony has formally revealed the long-rumored Horizon Zero Dawn MMO spin-off it’s making with Guild Wars writer NCSoft. It’s referred to as Horizon Metal Frontiers, it appears to be like so much like Monster Hunter, and it’s not coming to PlayStation 5.
Introduced throughout South Korea’s G-Star gaming conference, Horizon Metal Frontiers was developed in partnership with PlayStation studio Guerrilla Video games and facilities round massive, raid-like boss fights towards the franchise’s detailed assortment of futuristic prehistoric robots. As an alternative of following the story of franchise protagonist Aloy, gamers will create their very own customized characters and team-up to take down their mechanical quarries throughout PC and cellular.
There’s no launch date but however we did get a 10-minute deep-dive into the RPG’s gameplay and improvement backstory:
You play as a machine hunter within the Deadlands (impressed by Arizona and New Mexico) who hails from one among 4 tribes: the Nora, Tenakth, Utaru, or Oseram. It’s unclear precisely what number of different gamers you’ll be capable to workforce up with or how seamless the world can be as you discover, however early footage teased a number of completely different biomes, from fire-ravaged deserts to icy tundra. Gamers have floor and aerial mounts they will make the most of for exploration and fight and there’s one second within the trailer the place gamers are galloping throughout a area alongside a mechanical herd in addition to one of many collection’ iconic Tallnecks.
I don’t know the way it’s presupposed to run on telephones but it surely appears to be like nice.
“Horizon Steel Frontiers is a full-fledged MMORPG that NCSoft has built specifically for mobile,” Guerilla Video games studio director Jan-Bart van Beek mentioned throughout the video. “You’re sharing the frontier with thousands of other players, sometimes working together to take down machines and other times competing with rival tribes or fighting over resources, and that mix of cooperation and competition creates moments that you could never script.”
A gameplay trailer provides a greater sense of how precisely fight will work and it definitely appears to be like so much like Monster Hunter. Gamers will hack away at enemies, concentrating on weaknesses and damaging particular components of them over the course of battle. However it’s not simply mashing buttons. Gamers may also be capable to make use of fastidiously positioned traps and grappling hook-like pullcasters to sling-shot themselves across the battlefield and onto enemies’ backs. Primarily based on the UI, it appears to be like like there may even be some form of stagger mechanic.
NCSoft government producer Sunggu Lee mentioned throughout the developer interview that Horizon Metal Frontiers‘ emphasis will be on teamwork and strategy. As an MMORPG coming out of South Korea built primarily for smartphones, I also expect it to be a heavily monetized XP grind. If the company can make it feel more like a coop Horizon adventure than a second job min-maxing spreadsheets, Horizon meets Monster Hunter has the potential to be really cool. But a lot of that will come down to how smooth and rewarding the moment-to-moment combat looks and feels.
Sony is currently all-in on the Horizon franchise. In addition to Guerrilla teasing a third mainline entry in the existing open-world RPG series, there were rumors of a live service multiplayer spin-off based on project footage from 2020 that leaked several years ago. It’s unclear whether or not that was deserted, turned Metal Frontiers, or stays one other multiplayer challenge within the combine at Sony. There’s additionally the Horizon film that’s presently slated to begin filming next year.
