Sony Is Rebuilding Horizon Hunters Gathering From Scratch After Failed Playtests
Sony's live-service strategy is in deeper trouble. Horizon Hunters Gathering, the co-op spin-off announced by Guerrilla Games in February 2026, is being rebooted after playtests this summer left most participants cold. Bloomberg's Jason Schreier reports that the most recent session was held in June, and Guerrilla has been in emergency redesign mode ever since.
The reboot
All live-service elements are being cut. The game is shrinking into a smaller, more traditional co-op title with multiple playable characters and an optional single-player story mode. Staff who had been working on the service components have been moved to a separate project, which PlayStation executives will evaluate before the end of December 2026. That deadline suggests real pressure inside the studio to salvage something before the situation gets worse.
The bigger problem
The bad news doesn't stop at Hunters Gathering. Per Push Square, Schreier also reports that the bulk of Guerrilla's team spent years focused on the spin-off, leaving only a small group working on a proper Horizon sequel. Horizon Forbidden West launched back in February 2022, and a third mainline entry is now described as "very far away." If Hunters Gathering ultimately gets cancelled, that's years of development time with nothing to show for it.
This fits a pattern PlayStation fans have watched play out repeatedly. Sony cancelled The Last of Us Online, shelved multiplayer projects tied to God of War, Spider-Man, and Twisted Metal, and shut down Destiny 2 support — all while Concord became one of the most expensive failures in gaming history, reportedly costing between $200 million and $400 million. The lone live-service win, Helldivers 2, was made by an external studio. Sony's in-house record on the format is essentially zero for many.
The Hunters Gathering reboot may yet produce a decent co-op game — stripping out live-service mechanics and adding a story mode sounds like a step toward something more playable. But for anyone waiting on Aloy's next solo adventure, the timeline just got a lot murkier.
