Horizon Hunters Gathering Reportedly Rebooted as Smaller Co-op Game After Poor Playtests

That is a significant change in both production model and ambition. A live-service game must be designed to retain a large audience over time, while a smaller co-op game can concentrate on a more contained set of missions, systems and multiplayer interactions. The available reporting does not establish the final feature list, release date or whether the revised project has been approved for launch.

Why was the game rebooted?

According to reporting citing people familiar with the project, private testing produced feedback that Sony and Guerrilla considered serious enough to trigger a redesign. Work on the reboot reportedly began in June.

The project is therefore best described as in development but at risk, rather than as a confirmed upcoming release. A report says staff were told the game would have through December to impress executives at its next milestone. That makes the milestone a meaningful decision point for the reboot, not a guaranteed production deadline or launch target.

How is Guerrilla’s team being staffed?

Guerrilla reportedly devoted most of its developers to Hunters Gathering for several years. Under the new plan, some members of the team are said to be moving to other work while the remaining developers continue building the revised version.

The staffing change matters beyond Hunters Gathering itself. If much of Guerrilla’s capacity has been tied up in the multiplayer project, the studio has had fewer people available to advance its next mainline single-player Horizon game. Reporting says only a small team has been planning that game and that it remains “far, far away.”

That does not provide a release window for the next single-player Horizon, nor does it prove that the reboot has permanently delayed it. It does show the opportunity cost of assigning a large portion of a major studio to a project whose direction later has to be reconsidered.

What does the reboot mean for Sony’s live-service strategy?

The Horizon change looks less like a complete retreat from live service and more like a retreat from treating every major franchise as a candidate for a large, perpetual-content operation. Sony has cancelled or reshaped several multiplayer projects while continuing to say that live-service games remain part of PlayStation’s strategy.

Recent examples illustrate the tension:

• Concord launched on August 23, 2024, was pulled from sale and taken offline on September 6, and Firewalk Studios was subsequently closed.
• Sony cancelled unannounced live-service projects at Bend Studio and Bluepoint Games following a review; reporting linked Bluepoint’s project to a God of War live-service game.
• Bungie announced that Destiny 2: Monument of Triumph, released on June 9, 2026, would be the game’s final live-service content update, after which the game would remain playable while active development wound down.
• Helldivers 2 remains the counterexample: reporting identifies it as a major commercial success for PlayStation.

Sony Interactive Entertainment president and CEO Hideaki Nishino has said the company will continue supporting live-service games, while emphasizing that the model depends on continually providing new value to players.

The practical takeaway

Hunters Gathering suggests that Sony is becoming more willing to test, reassess and reduce the scope of a multiplayer project before release when its proposition is not working. The reported move to a smaller co-op game could lower the burden of maintaining a permanent service, but it also means the project must now prove that its revised identity is compelling enough to survive the December milestone.

For Horizon fans, the immediate consequence is uncertainty on two fronts: Hunters Gathering may continue in a smaller form, while the next single-player Horizon appears to be much farther away than a conventional sequel announcement might suggest. For Sony, the broader lesson is narrower but clearer: the company still wants the reach and recurring engagement of live-service games, yet recent cancellations, Concord’s rapid shutdown and the reported Horizon reboot show that not every large multiplayer bet will be allowed to continue unchanged.