The recently-unveiled co-op title Horizon Hunters Gathering raised quite a few eyebrows. While rumors surrounding a co-op game in the Horizon franchise being developed had been going around for some time, Sony has faced quite a few difficulties with its attempted live-service offerings. Studio director Jan-Bart Van Beek has attempted to cut this criticism off before it can get out of hand by noting that the studio will still make more single-player games in the future.
“I want to be very clear about one thing. We absolutely love making single-player games, and we’re going to keep making them,” said Van Beek, according to GamesRadar. He went on to note that, while single-player games are still “a huge part of who we are as a studio,” Guerrilla Games also has other ambitions.
“We also have this long-standing dream to try to do something different,” he explained. “Our own take on how you can explore the world of Horizon together as a team of machine hunters.”
Horizon Hunters Gathering will mark Guerrilla Games’ foray into multiplayer for the first time since its work on the Killzone franchise, the last of which was 2013’s Killzone Shadow Fall. Since then, the studio has kept itself busy with its work on the Horizon franchise, while also working with Kojima Productions so the latter could use the former’s in-house Decima game engine for Death Stranding.
The upcoming title is going to be a 3-player co-op game, with four environments being available for its various missions. The title will revolve around “runs”, and borrowing more cues from the rogue-lite genre, will allow players to power-up by acquiring Perks. Two modes have been confirmed for Horizon Hunters Gathering: Machine Incursion and Cauldron Descent.
While Machine Incursion will focus on players teaming up to take on ever-escalating waves of Machines that culminates in a boss fight, Cauldron Descent will of focus on players exploring “ever-changing rooms”, each of which offering their own unique challenges. These can range from combat encounters to platforming and even puzzle-solving.
Completing a hunt across either of the mods will allow players to improve their gear depending on the rewards they found during their excursions. The title will also offer a hub area where players can socialize and hang out.
While it doesn’t yet have a release date, Guerrilla Games has announced a closed playtest, for which players can sign up through the PlayStation Beta Program. The playtest is slated to go live towards the end of the month.
While Horizon Hunters Gathering might seem like a fun idea for a spin-off, game director Arjan Bak has confirmed that its narrative will be “fully canon” with the overall Horizon franchise.
“These Hunters have their own motivations and personal struggles, which comes together in new stories we want to tell in the world of Horizon,” he said about the playable characters. “The game has a narrative campaign which will introduce new mysteries, characters, and threats, but we’re keeping it under wraps for now. What we can say is that Hunters Gathering is fully canon and its story doesn’t stop at launch!”
