Sony Finally Confirms Horizon Co-Op Game, Horizon Hunters Gathering for PS5, PC

It's impossible to guess anymore when Playstation will announce something...

I liked the game's visuals.

Bro, what da hell are those character designs? Has Sony learned nothing out of the Concord disaster 😭

Not the biggest fan of the artstyle but willing to give it a chance. I'm sure this won't be well received by the majority but looks like it could be fun with friends

Let’s be real this looks terrible. The fact it got announced randomly on a Thursday afternoon doesn’t do much for confidence either. This generation of PlayStation continues to be such a disappointment. Extremely thankful for third party studios.

So many game developers are going with the "Saturday Morning Cartoon" aesthetic for games right now...

@LiamCroft Is there some kind of push behind the scenes to go for younger generations right now? I can't think of another reason why seemingly every game has this vibe.

I instantly hate the cartoony art style! Why is this graphical style so prevalent these days? In fact I detest the way gaming is going with the constant obsession with making everything live service. If this is successful horizon 3 will probably be the last single player game we see.

I like what I see so far. There's also mention of a narrative campaign in the blog post.

so it pretty much is a monster hunter stylized game in the horizon universe , could be interesting , would have to see more , hopefully theres an open beta to try out at some point.

The art style reminds me a lot of Arcane

That art style is atrocious. 😖

I won't play it but that combat looked crunchy in a good way. Like the art style but I'm mixed on character designs. Some look nice some look bad.

A lot of people will use fortnite comparisons but the art reminds me of POP Lost Crown.

Push square should add a poll asking what people think of the art style because I think this one will split opinion quite a bit.

Would also be interesting to see how many of the original single player gamers that like horizon are interested in an online live service version. I imagine the percentage will be quite small which means this game needs to find a new audience

Really weird to announce this right before a rumored state of play

Sony, why are you spoiling your own state of play announcements?

@BamBamBaklava89 good point. Also this doesn’t bode well for the possibility of a State of Play this month if they are just announcing this randomly.

@Boxmonkey my man they mentioned three times that they're making Horizon 3 and single player games.

I wonder if they announced this separately from the State of Play because they feared a negative reaction to its inclusion.

Even if the game is good, the pile on has already started. Sums up most new games nowadays. People decide before even seeing the game. Obviously everyone's entitled to an opinion. Just annoys me that games get trashed without giving them a chance. For the record it's not my type of game but im happy for most games to at least be given a chance.

The art style is abhorrent, the original games have a great art style, what were they thinking!

@BamBamBaklava89 Let's be real, it doesn't

@cainhurst94 I mean horizon 3 could be the last game in the franchise (that’s single player) not that they won’t ever make another single player game again.

I love Horizon, but I have no interest in multiplayer games, so this is an easy pass for me.

Loved the little mini Developer Direct! My first thought though is why not save this for the upcoming State of Play? Oh well, i guess that leaves more new things to show up there.

As for the game, i was pretty excited to hear about it, i like the story+co op elements and will keep an eye on developments, but i cant say that i’m really feeling all of it. They also went with the Fortnite esque artsyle (although this looks much better), which i dont hate, but cant say that i love it.

All in all, for the moment im kind of ‘meh’ on it, but happy to be convinced otherwise by future gameplay and reviews

@get2sammyb I think in motion it looks shockingly clean in combat with the exaggerated movement something that I found can be messy in foliage heavy areas of the main game. Also like that they're now openly talking about the Live Services.

I thought the artstyle looks nice. I believe this is the 1st time Guerilla use this cartoony style which is quite fresh since their previous games all used realistic style.

And while i'm not really a fan of co-op but this one still have a story campaign and that's good news.

Oh wow… another giant waste of money cool

I'm not a fan of the character designs, but I dig the rest of what they're showing. Two of my friends and I have been waiting for this Horizon co-op game for years.

Lmao here we go Doom and gloom gang

How can you fumble a Monster Hunter like Horizon game so big design wise?

I still don't know for sure if I'm interested or not.

But one thing that can be said with certainty is that the current fan base would probably kill itself if everyone had the PS3 at that time when Sony released a vast variety of games (including several multiplayer ones).

It's impressive that Sony has become hostage to an audience that only accepts one type of game: Third-person games focused on the single-player story. To the point where a developer has to say that they are still going to continue doing this IN THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF ANOTHER GAME.

@LogicStrikesAgain They did say back in September that Wolverine was being shown off in Spring so it might be February is a 3rd party only State of Play followed by April/May having a big Playstation Showcase.

@Boxmonkey the game director said this game will have a story campaign that can be played solo.

This actually looks great. Didn't expect the change in art style, but I dig it

@get2sammyb Remember Sammy it's "cool" to hate on everything nowadays

Just does not look appealing to me at all. I don't like the art, it sounds like a silly premise, and it feels like just another fortnite style copy cash grab.

Oi, not loving the art style. Reminds me of Fortnite mixed with dauntless/monster hunter gameplay. I thought their multiplayer venture was going to be more mmo rather than monster hunter.

@Grumblevolcano Most State of Plays focus on 3rd party, but i believe all of them also had new 1st party announcements in them as well.

I think Astro Bot, Ghost of Yotei, Saros and Marvel Tokon were all announced at SoP’s that predominantly focused on 3rd party games for the rest. Here’s hoping that GoW 2.5 game shows up at next weeks SoP 🤞🏼

I think the art direction they're going for looks fine, they likely went with this to help ease performance woes, especially a game that's multiplayer.

Can't wait not to play this.

The art style is a massive turn off for me. I like the realism of Horizon, this seems very Fortnite. I can only assume that there's too much of a resource overhead in that level of realism to manage with a multiplayer title. I was previously very interested in whatever the rumoured Monster Hunter style take on Horizon was going to be, much less so now that I've seen it.

@LogicStrikesAgain Maybe Sony don't want this game take the spotlight from some smaller games so they get this one out first.

@get2sammyb Not saying they're immune to critique but no one hates Sony more than Sony fans lol

Hermen Hulst needs to go.

He's completely out of touch with what the PlayStation audience want and has been a terrible custodian of the 1st party studios; allocating precious time and resources on multi platform live service garbage when they should have instead licensed out the properties to 3rd parties to free up 1st party to focus solely on making the best single player games for PS5 hardware. The visual style is such a blatant compromise to allow the game to scale to weaker platforms.

@get2sammyb I do think it's a neat art-style, but not for Horizon. I actually prefer the NCSoft one compared to this, at least it looks like an Horizon game.

@get2sammyb Yeah this is nothing look like Fortnite, not even the gameplay. I'm not sure where did some people got the Fortnite comparison. Last time i check Fortnite wasn't invented cartoony style nor the 1st game who used it.

Looks pretty generic and not my cup of tea, but will wait for reviews…or wait until it’s on PS Plus.

@get2sammyb I’m one of the ones that said Fortnite esque artstyle, but i just watched some Fortnite footage, and you’re right. Its a totally different style. I actually had to look it up, because i’ve never played Fortnite, i’ve only seem gameplay passing through on ads and stuff lol. I guess it’s just the general feel of the artstyle and the UI that made me think of it, if that makes any sense. I do agree with @MFTWrecks that it looks more Arcane esque

Btw, not hating the artstyle at all, but personally not really my cup of tea

@PuppetMaster Yes, my thoughts as well

This looks like a slightly more stylized Arcane, which literally won awards for its gorgeous art style.

I think it looks far more interesting visually than Horizon itself. I dig the f out of it. But, I love when games go for stylized looks versus realism. It gives them more character and identity, imo.

Let’s see what game will be more successful:

Horizon Steel Frontiers (the Chinese one)
or
Horizon Hunters Gathering (the Dutch one)

I wouldn’t bet on HHG!

@LogicStrikesAgain There's been some 3rd party only State of Plays like August 2020 and October 2021.

Awful. I like the Horizon games, even the one from Lego but I will easily pass on this one.

…my god this looks horrible.

Every bit of that trailer just made me want to avoid this game completely. It was like the anti-trailer.

Nope. I loved Horizon 1 and 2. This…

The artstyle looks like generic multiplayer nonsense to me. Fortnite, Concord, Highguard, Apex, etc.

The game may be good but the art direction is very uninspired in my humble opinion.

While I am not overly excited or anything I have a feeling that in MH-Wilds dissapointment; this will be successful.

I don't like the art style also but I assume being an online focused game and reaching out to most of PCs etc made them decide this kind of style.

Really enjoyed Zero Dawn, Forbidden West and the Lego Horizons adventure but have zero interest in online play so this isn’t for me, but I do like the art style.

@Grumblevolcano I dont understand your point. Are you saying the next SoP might be purely third party based on two SoP’s 5/6 years ago?

I dont know if this will be a purely 3rd party SoP or not btw, i’m not claiming anything, i was merely saying that most have had some kind of 1st party presence even if the main focus was 3rd party. And i personally hope GoW 2.5 shows up

Wow, exactly what I wanted from Horizon. Fortnite crap... After all the cancellations from Sony first party, this generation has been so underwhelming. Truly the lost generation of Sony first party. If all this effort was put into Horizon 3, it would probably be right around the corner. I wouldn't expect it till next gen at this point.

Why do people think that it is not OK to dislike something? Not liking change in art direction isn't the same thing as "hating" it.

You promote something and make a comments section but get defensive if people don't like what you want them to like. Sheesh.

I hope not, but this game is doomed.

@WhoderMan Tbf to him, i think its not about people hating on the artstyle, but people comparing it to Fortnite (which i did as well). And looking at it closer, it does not exactly look like Fortnite, and is indeed a bit of a lazy comparison, as he said

If games like Toyko Jungle or Gravity Rush came out now you would all lose your minds holy f**k.

Artstyle is like Darksiders meets Arcane. Looks like a fun time, will give it a go. And if it's not for me, well I'll move on and play something else.

@LogicStrikesAgain
To each their own, and if you like the looks of it thwn I hope you enjoy it!

Unfortunately, to me it looks like a lot of the multiplayer hero shooters already available. Fortnite, Apex Legends, Overwatch, Concord and Highguard just off the top of my head.

They all seem to want ALL of the players in the world and therefore go for a generic artstyle that they think will appeal to the most people.

Honestly, I would have vastly preferred that this look like Horizon: ZD or Horizon: FW.

Another flop coming up.
We will feeel Jim Ryan's legacy for the years to come, I guess.

@WhoderMan I’m actually not a 100% sold on the artstyle myself.

But i was actually replying to this comment of yours:

Why do people think that it is not OK to dislike something? Not liking change in art direction isn't the same thing as "hating" it.
You promote something and make a comments section but get defensive if people don't like what you want them to like. Sheesh.

I assumed that last part was meant towards sammyb, hence my comment, but maybe i was wrong

@SuperSilverback Gravity Rush and Tokyo Jungle are not fair comparisons at all. Those were unique and looked great.

This art style reminds me of Clash of Clans with the cartoony smirks. That is not meant as a compliment, I’m afraid.

But to each their own! For Guerilla’s sake I hope it does well. I just utterly hate how this looks and will patiently wait for Horizon 3 in the meantime.

@WhoderMan couldn’t agree more! People and publications run defence for games that the general public reject all the time. But it’s the “haters” that are at fault. They should just consume all the stuff they don’t want.

I think it’s a game specifically designed to not appeal to me. It’s everything I can’t be arsed with in one game.

This looks pretty cool! Love the tactical options. No one thinks this kind of gameplay is similar to Nightreign?

Also low-key disappointed that you will play from a selection of heroes rather than creating your own character, but I suppose it's easier to make and sell skins that way.

Hmm, just looks like Dauntless, and that shut down last year. Is the Horizon IP enough to carry this long term, I dunno tbh...

It looks more like a sequel to Dauntless than it does a new game in the Horizon series.
Not really sure how I feel about it tbh, the graphics look nice, taken on their own, but I'm not sure about the gameplay loop from what they've shown (plus, another hero based game, ugh). As a Horizon fan, this isn't really what I was expecting, nor dare I say, what I wanted.

I am glad they are releasing it, looks promising better than canning another project 😆 rip tlou factions.

I wonder if this will also release on Xbox and Switch 2. 🙂

It actually looks pretty good imo. I'm not the biggest fan of the art style but it isn't enough to dissuade me either. Combat looks fast and flashy in a fun way. I also like the various ways to play with the different scenarios. (One looks very Nightreign coded while another looks more Destiny raid based or something) My biggest holdup is really just trying to convince two other friends to try this with me as Horizon isn't as popular with my friend group.

We'll see. I like Horizon so I might give it a whirl.

As a fan of the Horizon franchise, I'm willing to give it a check.

The division in the opinions of the art style is wild lol.

This ain't Horizon, and definitely not what I was expecting it to look like. Disappointed is putting it lightly.

The only good thing about this seems to be the rock opera version of Aloy's Theme.

Its multiplayer nobody here will play it anyway doesnt matter what it looks like looks fine to me

We're getting this instead of Factions 2?

@Greifchen you say that but your profile pic of a character in a game thats coming out look ugly but its ok as its naughty dog

Where is Horizon 3?! Forbidden West was announced 3 years after Zero Dawn released. It's been nearly 4 since Forbidden West released. Since then, we've gotten a Horizon Lego game, a Horizon VR game, now 2 Horizon multiplayer games, but not a peep about Horizon 3.

@Gelloh What does Factions have to do with that? It's 2 completely different developers. Naughty Dog themselves cancelled Factions 2 without input from Sony.

Wow. The artstyle is absolutely horrendous. Immediately puts me off almost entirely and i'm somebody eho is typically all about gameplay. Very difficult to look beyond it though, just screams low budget, rip off of existing game/s.

If I can look past it for a second, there's still nothing grabbing me from that. When I heard about an online monster hunter style horizon game, i was all on board for it, the superb gameplay of the actual horizon games in that kind of environment could make for a brilliant game, this isn't what I had thought they'd be going for by a long shot.

I suspect they'll be a hefty amount of negativity towards this awful reveal until they start showing the beta in action. Having the horizon IP attached should attract big numbers and if they still have the traditional horizon gameplay it can recover from a poor forst impression and potentially go on to be a fantastic game. I am a bit skeptical as to whether the horizon combat is fully in there though, I get the impression it will be a massively scaled down and simplified version.

Remain open to having my mind changed and hope to have that happen but on that alone i'll be staying well clear of it.

God so much negativity lately. Especially when Sony announces multiplayer efforts. It is exhausting. Games are getting written off before anyone played them. Lighten up people.

@Greifchen
Yeah, I HATE the character design.
I also HATE the online component.
No Thanks!

Guerilla games need to make another games not name horizon wtf.wheres kill zone or another i.p.🤔🫡.Word up son

Currently playing forbidden west and going from that art style to this is a bit grating.

Just finishing watching the whole video. Looks pretty good. I’m not a multiplayer game guy-but my nephews & nieces are, and they are loving the video of it. Hopefully it does well for Sony/Guerrilla. Also if the game isn’t for you-just move on-simples. Many other games to play.

@Titntin

I worked as a tester, game designer, lead designer and assistant producer for many years (not 20, though) and I agree 100%.

Sony be committing financial sepuku at this point. Cataclysmic fail inbound.

I think you go to this art style when you want to reuse a metric butt-ton of art assets for a quick game turnaround, but you don't want it to LOOK like you reused all those assets.

Personally, I'll be glad when this throw-everything-at-the-wall live-service circus finally comes to an end.

Great that people are already rooting for it to fail and declaring their "opinion' that the art style looks atrocious, horrendous, or whatever other word I've seen as fact. I love cartoons and really appreciate animations that aren't all mocapped and environments that aren't just scanned.

@captainsandman thanks for the heads up

I can tolerate the artstyle, but the character design just ain't it man.

The art style looks perfect for its target market, not every game has to be made to sate the entitled moans of infantile adults.

@Titntin

Yeah, the industry is super tumultuous. After being out of work for a while and unsure what I really wanted to do with my life (making videogames had been my dream) I eventually moved to be closer to my aging and eventually passing father.

Still gotta figure out what to do with my life, hahaha!!

By the way, I also really respect Guerilla and pretty much all of Sony's teams.

Are you still in the industry? I also studied programming and game development in college. I was fine at it, but having met real programmers the world is far better off without my code! x-)

Can’t believe they’ve binned Killzone for this…

I think that I will pass

I loved the Horizon games but this is a hard pass for me. I hate online / multiplayer games. Pretty ticked that this rehashed Fortnite nonsense is eating precious developer bandwidth and stalling the next real Horizon sequel.

Nobody asked for this.

@captainsandman I think they miss a huge market not including local co-op, either via split screen or outputting a separate feed to a Portal. If it could be enjoyed offline in this way or as a single player I think more people would be enthusiastic. But as every online only game instantly starts with a countdown (however long) until it's demise where is the incentive to put in the hours? It's not like Phantasy Star Online which you can still play offline or on a private server.

Oh dear those character designs are rough... art style is fine I guess?

I can sort of see the connection to the earliest sketches of Alloy but the colour and speed is too much for me. I like slow and steady, I'm sure there's a demographic for that sort of thing.

Want any biscuits with that Milk?

Let’s see what the campaign parts is like, which is the part for me.
The rest of the game is not for me.

But it’s not a day one game for me like GOY or another full Horizon game.

Horizon: Fortnite Edition 😆. I didnt even finish the video. Soon as the game play started I knew it wasn't for me.

Marathon> horizon hunters gathering Sony should have canceled this crap.

I have no interest in playing such a game either way but what I don't understand, is why you would take an incredible looking ip and make it look like that

So it's Horizon: Nightreign, basically? Kinda left it a bit late to maximise interest, now this seems like just another pve multiplayer game amongst a recent slew of similar titles.

And that art style is totally whack. All the characters look so unappealing, except for Samuel L Jackson.

Also looks like combat is less about precision and more like a hero shooter, with timed abilities? Definitely not the way to go, in my opinion.

Man, NCsoft is really gonna eat their lunch here, what a shame they didnt put all their resources into porting that to PS5 as well instead of this.

@captainsandman don't think I could've said it any better myself.

Ehhhhhhh, nope.

@Greifchen gotta be ironic with that profile pic, right? 😂

Personally speaking, What a waste of resources, the studio head said, as soon as the video started, that they love making single player games and they will always do that, I mean holy crap that’s not how you start selling a game. It basically means, we have been forced to make this, but don’t worry because once we are done pushing this, as long as we are still a company, we will make what players really want. Herman Hulst seems to have forgotten what made Sony games so great once upon a time. This is exactly the game he would have green lit, or at least asked to be made personally..

@captainsandman

That's how I felt about Concord. It was clearly well made and highly polished. Not my kind of game at all but the internet trashed and dogpiled on it more than it deserved.

That said, I am not a fan at all of this Horizon. There is a 10 minute or so youtube video by Playstation where I got a better look and it didn't change my mind.

However, if others like it, that's great.

Wow this looks awful.

Co op Fortnite/apex : Horizon edition. The art style doesn't fit and was clearly created for the singular purpose the fit into the homogeneous soup that is most of the online hero slop out there.

Sony and Co continue to learn very little from their blunders...

Rather than stay true to the tone and style of the series the turned it into this mess...

@get2sammyb You know how it is Sammy if this was coming from Nintendo or a Japanese studio people here would be singing a different Tune but because it's Sony it gets trashed.

@Titntin

17 years working with the homeless is very impressive! Good for you! Maybe that is something that I should consider. I'm not quite your age but we're in the same ballpark.

Not got me but I liked the visual style and understand why you would pick a stripped back style for this sorry of game. The animation trailer was also really good.

I swear I don’t understand some of the commenters…you may not like the style but nothing about this is “abhorrent” or “atrocious”. Personally I think the art style is very cool!
People called Wind Waker ugly at the time anyway, so I guess I should not be surprised.

Where was this style for Concord lol

Also, this is giving me a lot of Dauntless vibes. Hopefully, it's a better co-op Horizon game than the lego one.

@Nei I think the game has to much color for the average PlayStation gamer so much so that it's like looking at the sun for them.

I’m all for people expressing their opinion, i just dont understand why some people feel the need to yell things like “this crap shouldnt have been made” or “who asked for this, i hope this flops”.

I mean, apparently there are also many people here that do like it, so let people enjoy it. Studios can’t make games that will always appeal to everyone. Heck, i can’t for the life of me understand whats so fascinating about Fortnite, but apparently half the world likes it. Who cares, to each their own

It looks like a generic mish mash of many other games set loosely in the Horizon world. Definitely not for me.

@get2sammyb I think they coped fine with the variety, volume and quality during the PS3 generation. Something that can't be said for the PS5 generation.

Good god, the absolute state of the comment sections on this site. It's always the same, whenever Sony dares to do something that doesn't cater exactly to their tastes, commenters here go in a complete meltdown. Like a bunch of toddlers having a tantrum. Do some of you ever go back and look at the sort of hyperbolic garbage you write? Because maybe you should.

Anyway, I think it looks fine, even if it occupies a market segment that I'm personally not interested in. It looks fun, and it has character, so I can see this finding an audience. Plus it looks like something that doesn't break the bank, which is the type of project that Sony doesn't do enough of. I hope it does well.

@get2sammyb because the ps3 era was great?

@Nei it’s called hyperbole

The art style looks phenomenal

Honestly, if this wasn't Horizon, I doubt I'd be interested. But I signed up to be considered for the beta.

If it's PVE and it's not exploitive in pricing or monetization, then it could be a lot of fun. If you can solo it, even better.

The art style isn't my favorite, but it's not awful. I'm interested. If it ends up being F2P I'll definitely give it a shot - if not, I'll keep my eyes on the reviews and pricing, and decide if it's worth my time when there's more to see than a promotional video.

@get2sammyb "Not sure what the earlier comments are smoking, I love how this looks."

If you're 14, yeah.

I don’t want to sound like a hater but, the other one not made by Guerrilla looks better. The artstyle of this one is vastly different from the main games. This feels like a waste of time and they should be developing the third Horizon instead.

You can feel they try to borrow the art style from Fortnite, but it still looks rubbish. That’s what they are wasting resources on..?!? Ridiculous

@Art_Vandelay I didn't know only 14 years old who can enjoyed games with cartoony style.

@Ainu20 People can be disappointed because this product consumes money, time and human resources they could spend better. No one is waiting for this

“I dont like this, therefore no one does”

— Half of the users on Push Square 😎

@Reyzore that's the point urnot supposed to know 😅

@SuperSilverback "If games like Toyko Jungle or Gravity Rush came out now you would all lose your minds holy f**k"

True 🤝

I bet the same people gonna hate Sly Cooper, Jak & Daxter, Medievil, Puppeteer, Dark Cloud, or Patapon if it came out now. They gonna mock the artstyle as atrocious and call it "kids games".

Although I like the art style... I don't like it in a Horizon game? Why are they trying to make Horizon even more cartoonish than Overwatch?

This art style in any other game, cool, but it feels so out of place for this IP.

@PuppetMaster And those same people are always crying that Sony only cares about Dark Hyper realistic aaa games and doesn't like make colorful fun games anymore.

the art style looks cool, looks like a disney movie, my problem is how tonally different it is from the main series, it`s a bit of a clash.

anyway not going to bother, i said a long time ago if sony wants to make multiplayer games and sell them to pc too, they need to give me parity and free multiplayer like they give on pc or they won`t get my money at all.

@Areus Yeah. I remember it's not that long ago people crying and whining that they bored with Sony's "AAA realistic + sad-dad + dealing with grief and pain" games.
https://www.ign.com/articles/im-getting-bored-of-every-playstation-game-telling-the-same-story

I guess right now we're at the start of "Sony please stop doing this colorful & cartoony 3rd person action games!" phase.

I wonder how long this phase gonna stay before people go back to "Sony stop with this AAA realistic-gritty-movie-sad dad games!" phase...

@PuppetMaster No matter what kind of games Sony makes people are never going to be Happy.

Looks like it was designed from the imagination of a boardroom.

If they released a Horizon game with this mode as couch MP, I might try it with my kids.

Tonnes of comments here already so mine will likely get lost in the ether but anyways...

I'm personally turned off by the art style. It's just not what I'm into but that's OK. Everyone has their tastes but if you like the look of it, then great!

My issue is that this game feels designed by committee / analytics driven rather than something driven by pure creative passion. 'what are the most popular games out there? OK we need to make our game look and feel like those' etc etc.

It's an odd choice because it feels like it is targeting the fortinite audience but are those player really going to leave that game in favour of this? I feel Hunters Gathering isn't really appealing to existing Horizon fans either so... who is this game for?

I look at the success of Arc Raiders and it's probably done so well because it's doing something a little different. Helldivers 2 did something a little different and that was a success as well.

I 100% agree that we should not pile on a game before its release but first impressions are important and my first impression is not good.

For the record I also felt the same about Concord but I wanted to give it a chance and so I played the beta and only after putting a few hours into it I decided it wasn't for me.

Ultimately I think this game needs to be F2P to stand a chance of being successful.