PlayStation's Horizon series was always imagined as a multiplayer game

Despite being one of the best-selling single-player franchises in Sony's lineup, the Horizon franchise had always been envisioned as a multiplayer project.

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The surprise announcement of the new Horizon: Steel Frontiers MMORPG caught fans off guard. It's a new free-to-play MMO set in the Horizon franchise, and it's not coming to Sony's PlayStation 5. This has prompted lots of discussions among gamers about what's going on with the series, and now Guerrilla Games' art director Jan-Bart van Beek steps in to clarify that Horizon was always supposed to have multiplayer.

"From the first moment we imagined Horizon, we always thought about it as a multiplayer game," van Beek said on Twitter.

"LEGO Horizon Adventures was our first small step, with Steel Frontiers we're taking a bigger one. There is much more to come, and we're excited to show you what is coming."

It turns out that Guerrilla is making their own online Horizon game with multiplayer, and it will launch on PS5.

Bloomberg's Jason Schreier says that the new Horizon: Steel Frontiers MMORPG isseparate from the big Horizon Online project that Guerrilla is making.

This explains why Horizon: Steel Frontier isn't on PS5--it would compete with Sony's own first-party Horizon Online--and it also reiterates that Steel Frontiers is made for a specific mobile-oriented audience.

Van-Beek's words seem to tease Horizon Online, however it's unclear when exactly the project will be revealed. Sony's live service ambitions have been off to jagged start, with Helldiver 2's megaton success offset by expensive failures like Concord and the ongoing delay with Bungie's Marathon.