Sony Rumor Tips Horizon Steel Frontiers: New MMO Coming to Mobile and PC

It looks as though Sony is planning a new MMO set in the Horizon universe, according to a video recently revealed by The Verge. The video in question is 10 minutes long, showing off a mix of gameplay and cinematic footage interspersed between developer interviews. The game, which will apparently be called Horizon Steel Frontiers, looks to be launching for PC, iOS, and Android and is being developed by Sony and NCSoft. Curiously, there is no mention of a PS5 launch in the marketing materials cited by The Verge, and the material also makes no mention of a release date or price.

The pre-alpha gameplay footage shows players working together to face off against and tame the giant mechanical beasts from the Horizon universe, as well as harvesting resources from the defeated enemies. The video gives us a glimpse at a variety of environments and biomes that will be part of Steel Frontiers, including dilapidated, overgrown buildings, underground caves and labyrinths, an apparent desert area, beaches, lush forests, and at least one hub area. The environment is, however, inspired by Arizona and New Mexico, so it might be fair to expect a little more desert shrubbery than forest canopy. In terms of gameplay, combat will feature a mix of powerful melee encounters, ranged attacks, and a decent amount of mobility and traversal. There also seems to be an emphasis on tactics, with traps and more nuanced approaches seemingly required for some of the more powerful monsters.

From the description of one of the Guerilla Games executives involved in the project, the gameplay loop seems to follow a similar structure as that of the Monster Hunter series, with players taking on the roles of “machine hunters” to take on certain missions or quests to hunt down specific machines native to the post-apocalyptic world. Except, it seems like Sony and NCSoft will allow for larger teams than the four players typical in Monster Hunter games, as the leaked promo video specifically mentions “large-scale battles,” and sharing the space with “thousands of other players” in both cooperative and competitive encounters.

Players will also be able to customize their own character, in typical MMO fashion, instead of playing as the protagonist from the story-driven games set in the same universe—although players will need to choose a tribe from the original Horizon games to form part of. The customization options shown in the promo footage are in-depth, including skin details, hair type and color, a range of eye and facial shape options, and more.