Horizon Hunters Gathering reportedly being rebooted, without live service

Guerrilla Games is reportedly rebuilding Horizon Hunters Gathering from the ground up. According to Bloomberg, the Amsterdam studio has been working since June to strip out the entire live-service layer of the game, turning it into a more classic co-op experience, complete with a story mode and a "much smaller" scope.

What the report says

The trigger is said to have been a private test phase conducted earlier this year, which reportedly received poor feedback. The game is not said to be cancelled, but teams were reportedly told on Wednesday that they have until December to convince leadership at a development milestone. A substantial portion of the developers would also be moving over to another project, which is likewise being evaluated by year's end.

The other piece of information hits solo players harder: almost all of Guerrilla is said to have been working on Hunters Gathering for years, with only a "very small team" breaking ground on the next mainline Horizon, still "years" away from release. Sources tell Bloomberg that Sony has burned through "hundreds of millions of dollars" trying to convert its single-player franchises into multiplayer games.

Reliability

The report comes from Jason Schreier, whose behind-the-scenes revelations about PlayStation have proven accurate on numerous occasions in recent years. However, it relies on anonymous sources: neither Sony nor Guerrilla has confirmed or denied it. On the French Steam store, the game is still listed as a tactical co-op action title, with no release date.