Horizon Hunters Gathering is changing course. Guerrilla Games is reportedly overhauling the project to make it a more traditional co-op game, reducing its scope after poor feedback from closed playtests held this year.
The rework will remove live-service elements and add a story mode, according to the report dated Aug. 19, 2026, at 10:47 am EST. That is a substantial change for a game that had been positioned around a broader, ongoing model rather than a contained co-op experience.
Guerrilla is reportedly giving developers until the end of the year to impress executives with the next milestone. The deadline puts the revised version of Horizon Hunters Gathering under direct pressure, with the studio now expected to prove that the smaller plan works before development moves further.
Many developers working on Horizon Hunters Gathering are being reassigned to a different project. Most of Guerrilla’s developers had been working on Gathering, while a smaller team began work on the next mainline Horizon game.
That mainline sequel to Horizon Forbidden West remains “years away from completion.” The shift in staffing therefore leaves Guerrilla balancing a troubled co-op project, a separate Horizon title handled outside the studio, and a mainline sequel that still has a long development road ahead.
The separate multiplayer game, Horizon Steel Frontiers, is being developed externally by NCSoft for PC and mobile. That project remains distinct from Horizon Hunters Gathering, which Guerrilla is now reshaping after the closed-playtest response.
The changes also land inside a wider reversal for Sony Interactive Entertainment’s live-service plans. Sony planned to release 10 live-service games by March 2023, but canceled a string of projects, including games based on God of War and Spider-Man.
Naughty Dog canceled a Last of Us multiplayer game in 2023, adding another high-profile withdrawal from that push. Sony’s purchase of Bungie has not gone smoothly either: Bungie ended active development of Destiny 2, while Marathon did not meet expectations.
Sony has spent a large amount of money and developer resources on live-service games, a strategy that has been considered wasteful. Horizon Hunters Gathering now represents a retreat from that approach, with Guerrilla removing live-service elements instead of continuing to build around them.
The result is not a cancellation, but it is more than a routine adjustment. Guerrilla is reducing the game’s scope, adding a story mode, redistributing developers, and working toward a new milestone before the end of the year.
For players, the clearest change is the move toward a traditional co-op structure. For Guerrilla and Sony, the next milestone will decide whether that narrower direction can rescue Horizon Hunters Gathering from the poor feedback that forced the overhaul in the first place.
