Horizon Steel Frontiers announced - MMORPG from NCSOFT for iOS, Android and PC

WTF Sony are doing....

Not that I would play this but still...

It's free money for them. They license out the IP to a 3rd party who has experience making mobile games. PS has wanted to venture into the mobile space for a while now. They've failed at trying to do it themselves. So this path makes way more sense business wise. It doesn't waste any internal 1st party resources.
 
Combining two of GAF's favorites.

Horizon and AI art / code generation.




Horizon Steel Frontier was previously known as Project Skyline. There was talk about introducing AI NPCs back then. Are there any related features that have been implemented?

Within the company, we are testing and receiving help from basic NPCs in the process of cooperating or fighting together in combat. In our case, since it's an ARPG, we are receiving help in various aspects, such as determining the optimal number of players for gameplay rather than playing with a large number of users. Internally, we are also using AI assistance for production, from coding to art.

It is being substantially implemented in actual development, and the technologies will likely be revealed one by one later. The Horizon development team is also the team that wants to utilize AI the most. We are using it extensively, and you will be able to see the level of AI utilization increase significantly in the games released after Aion 2.


 
Purple is a launcher like Steam, guys, you can buy all kinds of games on Purple (Sony has been selling their games like Spider-Man, Ratchet and Horizon on there for quite some time now). Stop with the "emulator like bluestacks" bs.

This game will have a native PC version, just like Genshin, WuWa, Arknights or any other cross platform game.
 
Purple is a launcher like Steam, guys, you can buy all kinds of games on Purple (Sony has been selling their games like Spider-Man, Ratchet and Horizon on there for quite some time now). Stop with the "emulator like bluestacks" bs.

This game will have a native PC version, just like Genshin, WuWa, Arknights or any other cross platform game.
Purple launcher isn't like Steam. It's NCSofts emulator for mobile games.
 
The game is now confirmed to be using AI. '
Internally, we are also using AI assistance for production, from coding to art.

It is being substantially implemented in actual development, and the technologies will likely be revealed one by one later. The Horizon development team is also the team that wants to utilize AI the most. We are using it extensively, and you will be able to see the level of AI utilization increase significantly in the games released after Aion 2.'

https://m.ruliweb.com/news/read/217907

No wonder all the characters in the game look crap as they are all designed by an AI rather than a real human artist. Just another lazy dev who isn't interested in putting in real work into their games.
 
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I actually think this is the best path forward for Horizon and I am not even joking. What we don't need is a third Alloy game with boring ass characters and a cliched open world checklist-athon. I'll take this exact game over Horizon 3 every day of the week. I will be there day one. Now put Eve in it and we are all set.

A Horizon 3 game would sell a minimum of 10 million copies though.
 
Purple launcher isn't like Steam. It's NCSofts emulator for mobile games.
Ah, so the Purple versions of Spider-Man 1 and 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Rift Apart, Guild Wars 2 and Throne and Liberty are all emulated mobile versions. Alright! Gotcha. I guess I must've missed Sony's move to release games on Android now.

Purple has outgrown its "It's just an emulator for Lineage W" stage since last year when NCSoft rebranded it to become a "comprehensive gaming platform" (there is even a PR for that). It's a launcher just like Steam, Battle.net, Origin or Uplay (or any other launcher). It emulates some games that are only available on mobile, that's it.
 
Purple is a launcher like Steam, guys, you can buy all kinds of games on Purple (Sony has been selling their games like Spider-Man, Ratchet and Horizon on there for quite some time now). Stop with the "emulator like bluestacks" bs.

This game will have a native PC version, just like Genshin, WuWa, Arknights or any other cross platform game.

Purple is literally an emulator lol.

most of the big mobile publishers have their own android emulators on the market.
some bundle them with game installs as to making the install and gameplay process feel almost like native PC apps... almost
 
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Ah, so the Purple versions of Spider-Man 1 and 2, Horizon Zero Dawn, Rift Apart, Guild Wars 2 and Throne and Liberty are all emulated mobile versions. Alright! Gotcha. I guess I must've missed Sony's move to release games on Android now.

Purple has outgrown its "It's just an emulator for Lineage W" stage since last year when NCSoft rebranded it to become a "comprehensive gaming platform" (there is even a PR for that). It's a launcher just like Steam, Battle.net, Origin or Uplay (or any other launcher). It emulates some games that are only available on mobile, that's it.
Those games already have native PC ports and aren't available on mobile, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
 
Those games already have native PC ports and aren't available on mobile, I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.
I am saying that Purple nowadays is not just an emulator. It is a regular launcher that launches PC games. It also launches mobile games with an emulator, yes, but most of the mobile games on Purple still have a dedicated PC version.

People have thrown "Bluestacks" around in this thread and Purple is not that.

Some people in this thread are 100% sure this will be a mobile version emulated to run on PC just because "it's Purple".

M mayham2199 yes, this is what I mean.
 
How tf are they going to make it playable on Android?

If the mobile version is that Fortnite looking version that leaked ages ago, I swear to God lol
You might be confusing it with other Horizon MP title which is in the works at Guerilla.

 
NC Soft with a mobile port? Yeah I'm not going anywhere near this micro transaction hell.
 
You might be confusing it with other Horizon MP title which is in the works at Guerilla.

Sad Jim Carrey GIF


Why even bother making 2 Horizon MP games?
 
Hulst did not keep the same position and it's obviously a demotion of sorts.

He went from co-CEOing PlayStation in general to CEO of Studio Business Group while Nishino became the sole CEO.
Incoming long, over-explanatory, and very specific post that I do think is needed because people still get confused with this:

Hermen Hulst went from being president of PlayStation Studios (reporting to previous president and CEO of SIE, Jim Ryan) to CEO of Studio Business Group in June 2024 (reporting to previous SIE chairman, Hiroki Totoki), a role that he still has (only now reporting to current president and CEO of SIE, Hideaki Nishino), meaning that he keeps the same higher salary compared to his old one.
Hideaki Nishino went from being president of Platform Experience Group (reporting to previous president and CEO of SIE, Jim Ryan) to CEO of Platform Business Group in June 2024 (reporting to previous SIE chairman, Hiroki Totoki), to president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment in April 2025 (reporting to the executive management staff at Sony Group), meaning that he now has a higher salary compared to his old one that was even higher to the one when he used to report to Jim Ryan.
It's not that Hermen Hulst got demoted (he literally now has a higher salary compared to the rest of the SVPs at SIE that were also reporting to Jim Ryan), it's just that Hideaki Nishino got further promoted.
 
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Did Sony outsource this? Kinda crazy that Sony's own platform doesn't get the game but PC does. Not a good look imo.

Not outsourced. NCSoft is licensing the IP. They're publishing and developing the game. So Sony has little to no involvement at all other then collecting the license fee.
 
I am saying that Purple nowadays is not just an emulator. It is a regular launcher that launches PC games. It also launches mobile games with an emulator, yes, but most of the mobile games on Purple still have a dedicated PC version.

People have thrown "Bluestacks" around in this thread and Purple is not that.

Some people in this thread are 100% sure this will be a mobile version emulated to run on PC just because "it's Purple".

M mayham2199 yes, this is what I mean.
"Horizon Steel Frontiers is a full-fledged MMORPG that NCSoft has built specifically for mobile," Jan-Bart van Beek, studio director at PlayStation's Guerilla Games, says in the video.
 
That's clearly pc footage. No mobile slip look that good and frame pacing was smooth. I'd like to see it in mobile first
You haven't been keeping up at all with mobile advancements have you? Visually this game is not at all surprising to those of us who know what phones are capable of these days. Even my outdated Oneplus 12 can probably run this game smoothly.

Hell, I can play most of my Steam library on my phone, and that's natively, not streaming.
 
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One for the gooners (the one that will succeed) and one for the journalists to fluff up (and will fail).

We should use the technical term for gooners.

General Audiences.

Marketing 101: Attractiveness sells. Always has and always will. It's what all industries in entertainment knew until roughly 2015 before they decided to reinvent the wheel going for that "modern audience".
 
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You haven't been keeping up at all with mobile advancements have you? Visually this game is not at all surprising to those of us who know what phones are capable of these days. Even my outdated Oneplus 12 can probably run this game smoothly.

Hell, I can play most of my Steam library on my phone, and that's natively, not streaming.
Phones have come a crazy long way in the last few years. The hardware is overkill most of the time.

I wonder if it will come to Apple TVs so you can use a ps5 controller to play?
 
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