Less than a week after reporting that Sony has axed two live service projects, a God of War one from Bluepoint and an unknown one from Bend, there are rumblings that another live multiplayer project may have been cancelled, the Horizon Zero Dawn MMO that Sony was making with NCsoft.
From Korea’s MTN (via ResetEra), we have reporting that a number of games have stopped development at NCsoft:
“It is understood that some of NCsoft’s new games and live games have received a notice of decision to stop development or service as a result of a feasibility review. Games under CBO Lee Seong-gu, including “Pantera,” “H,” and “J,” are reportedly included in the list, raising questions about whether development of “Pantera,” also known as “Raise Lineage M,” will actually be halted.”
It has long been thought that NCsoft’s Project H is that Horizon Zero Dawn MMO, so much so that it’s on the game’s Fandom wiki page and this has seemingly been confirmed through past reporting and job listings of NCsoft employees.
NCsoft has been in somewhat rough shape as of late, resulting in this eyebrow-raising quote from co-chairman Kim Taek-jin:
“Let’s create a 2025 where we work to the bone with the idea that if we don’t turn around in 2025, there will be no future for NC again.”
In this case it is not clear whether this a purely NCsoft issue, given all the other non-Sony projects also being put on hold, or if it is in fact related to Sony’s recent live service cancellations, where this was another big project for them.
It is important to distinguish this NCsoft MMO from a different, live service Horizon Zero Dawn project being worked on by Guerilla Games directly, tentatively referred to as Horizon Online, which features more cartoony graphics according to leaked concept art. This is not an MMO but some sort of co-op game, apparently targeted at a younger audience. We’ve gotten few details and we don’t know about when it might launch. There is so far no reporting that this has been cancelled along with Sony’s other recent cancellations or this new NCsoft development.
It would not be terribly surprising if Sony was willing to let this NCsoft one go due to general live-service rethinking after Concord, and also the fact that it already has a separate live Horizon game in the works from the actual, original studio. Whether that makes it to release is another question entirely.
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