Summary
Across two mainline games, Guerrilla Games’Horizonseries has become one of the most popular first-party Sony series. With its unique take on a post-apocalyptic Earth ecologically devastated by rampant AI machine creatures,Horizonhas captured the attention of many fans since its debut in 2017. And as the franchise has since expanded with various crossovers and titles like theLEGO Horizon Adventures, Guerrilla has even more ambitious plans for the future.
However, there’s been a bit of confusion and uncertainty regarding some of the upcoming plans for the IP. It seemed that aHorizonMMO that was in development by NCSoftunder the codenameProject Skylinewas canceled by Sony earlier this year, but recently it’s come to light this may not actually be case. Guerrilla itself, though, is apparently moving forward with a separate multiplayer co-op live-service experience, currently known asHorizon Online, that the studio announced back in 2022. Assuming this project is indeed on track, there is already a great way for it to work in a standard element of MMO/live-service titles in the form of pets for players to collect and manage.
A third single-playerHorizongameis also known to be in the works, but Gurreilla has offered little information about it so far.
Horizon’s Planned Live-Service Title Has a Clear Path to Give Players MMO-Style Pets
Pets Are Prominent in MMOs
The majority of MMOs and other similar online-based titles have often featured a variety of pets for fans to acquire and show off. From some of the most memorablepets inWorld of Warcraftand across many others, letting fans adopt, tame, buy, or otherwise attain a pool of pets has become an ingrained feature across the genre. Many of these usually impart bonuses or buffs of some kind, and can also serve as status symbols for those who work to acquire the rarest or most desirable ones. Fans are thus likely expectingHorizon Onlineto include the ability to attain pets as well, and the series’vast world, deep lore, and complex history all contain aspects that would lend themselves well to incorporating this into the live-service experience.
How Horizon’s Live-Service Spinoff Can Turn Machines Into Players' Pets
Given thatHorizon’s heroine, Aloy, gains the ability to override and pacify certain machines in the previous games, this alone provides a way to give players a similar ability in an online space. TheHorizon Onlinegamewill very likely also give fans a way to acquire normal machine mounts, since it’s already established and is another expected inclusion. Depending on when inHorizon’s timeline Guerrilla chooses to set the title, fans could perhaps see the introduction of a more widespread version of overriding that lets players replicate this feat.
What might naturally follow from this then is doing so on a smaller scale, with fans being able to find and adopt something like “baby” machines in the wild that act as traditional pets. It could also explain this via new lore, possibly by having NPCs who are able to construct “tamed” miniature versions of the familiar menagerie ofHorizon’s machines. Guerrilla has previously confirmed it will be addingnew types of machines to the nextHorizonsingle-player game. These could easily be inserted into the live-service title and given more cozy aesthetics, letting fans customize them with costumes, cosmetics and such, and working towards attaining the ones that appeal to them the most. There’s also a good chance that, so long as it turns out to be sustainable, the studio will add new ones through seasonal and special events.Horizon Onlineis thus primed to take one of the franchise’s most iconic elements and provide players with an assortment of cool and cute robotic pets.
