A new report today states that Sony has partnered with MMO publisher NCSoft to build a MMORPG set in the Horizon universe. The report states that NCSoft is currently looking for devs to work on the project.
The report comes from Korean news site MTN (via VGC), and states that the MMORPG is being developed internally by NCSoft. MMORPG fans are going to find that name familiar as it's the publisher and developer of many loved MMORPG series such as Lineage and Guild Wars 2.
Sony has been looking to push more into live services and it was one of the main reasons it cited when it snapped up Destiny 2 developer Bungie. This move seems consistent with that desire, as well as follows what the Geurilla Games team has wanted to do since the first Horizon title: add multiplayer.
It was scrapped in Horizon: Zero Dawn to give players a more focused title, according to VGC, and their sources also state that Horizon: Forbidden West was a potential landing spot for a multiplayer mode. However, VGC reports that this was set aside for "a future project."
It seems now this is the future project as NCSoft looks to be ramping up hiring for the MMORPG. The original report (via ResetEra and Google Translate) states that Sony and NCSoft are targeting the global game market with this collaboration, and are hiring developers under the Project H name. The MTN report also states that Choi Hony-young, who was leading developement on Lineage W will be shifting focus to lead Project H.
What a Horizon MMORPG could look like is full of possibilities thanks to the lore and setting established by the two single-player titles. But hopefully we'll be hearing more soon about this project from both Sony and NCSoft. We've reached out to both companies and will update this article with any comment they provide.
