Earlier today, PlayStation and Guerrilla revealed Horizon Hunters Gathering, the subsequent entry within the widespread post-apocalyptic franchise. However this spin-off is a multiplayer-focused on-line co-op motion sport that appears lots like Monster Hunter meets Future. It is going to obtain updates post-launch, and oh, wait, this can be a live-service sport. Oh no, this was a nasty time to announce Hunters Gathering.
I’m unsure a colourful, cartoonish online-only spin-off of the photorealistic solo single-player open-world sequence Horizon would have been a smash hit with terminally on-line followers at any level. However proper now, of all occasions, feels one of many worst doable moments to disclose Hunters Gathering to a world large internet primed to make a Kombucha Lady face at all the things it’s doing. The final two years have been affected by the corpses of failed, cancelled, or still-dying live-service video games. Lots of gamers are, understandably, bored with this stuff and uncertain of whether or not they need to even make investments any time into caring, as so many appear to flop or shut down.
The hunt is on.
Step into the world of Horizon Hunters Gathering, a brand new co-op motion sport from Guerrilla coming to PS5 and PC: https://t.co/TNWH4oRX2Q pic.twitter.com/BCjSquv30R
— PlayStation (@PlayStation) February 5, 2026
It was simply final month that Highguard launched and was then immediately trashed by a big portion of gamers. The live-service PvP shooter debuted on the Sport Awards, launched with over 90k lively gamers on Steam, and now, lower than two weeks after launch, is struggling to succeed in 5,000 gamers and is nowhere to be seen on any of my social feeds. Earlier than that, Harmony, a earlier try by Sony to make a live-service sport, infamously crashed and burned in less than two weeks. Marathon, the subsequent sport from PlayStation-owned Bungie, has had a very rocky rollout ever because it confirmed it was an online-only live-service expertise, making me nervous about its future at the same time as sentiment on-line appears to be slowly rebounding in its favor.
There are such a lot of extra live-service video games that appear to be struggling to exist in an period when most individuals are simply taking part in Roblox, Fortnite, GTA Online, or DOTA 2 forever. As reported by TheGamer, many of the live-service games launched in 2025 have lost most of their players, in line with SteamDB. And whereas there are a couple of latest exceptions, like Arc Raiders and Marvel Rivals, it’s actually, actually arduous to interrupt into the market and keep round. Even transient vivid spots, like final 12 months’s mini-breakout MOBA Supervine, eventually lose steam.
All of those makes an attempt to carve out a sustainable multiplayer area of interest over the past two years have whittled down gamers’ endurance. At this level, each live-service multiplayer factor will get dunked on relentlessly the second it’s introduced. Certain, a few of that negativity is simply assholes drafting off the “hate everything” digital ecosystems on TikTok and YouTube. However loads of it’s also simply folks bored with extra video games that ask a ton of their gamers with out first incomes it, solely to ultimately pay it again with a shutdown discover screenshot on social media.
That is the setting that Sony has introduced Horizon Hunters Gathering into, and it shouldn’t shock anybody that loads of the reactions to the sport are folks saying they’ve zero curiosity or actively calling it dangerous. Are you able to blame them? The final two years have proven that live-service video games are liable to failure, more likely to collapse shortly after launch, and never price testing if you happen to already play one or two of them, like Fortnite. Possibly that’s why they slipped it out in a PlayStation Weblog publish as a substitute of a correct State of Play showcase.
So, whereas I believe Hunters Gathering seems to be neat and may very well be enjoyable, I’m nicely conscious that in the future I’ll seemingly be writing a narrative about the way it’s now not getting updates and is shutting off the in-game microtransaction store. You’ll learn that headline on X or Reddit, go “Oh right, that game…” after which simply preserve scrolling by. It’s arduous to get too excited a couple of new sport, even from a PlayStation studio, when that destiny already feels sealed. Possibly particularly from a PlayStation studio.
