Horizon series has 16-game long potential, please send help

PlayStation Studio Guerrilla Games has spoken about how its Horizon series could have 16 games following on from the second game released for PS5.

Horizon series has 16-game long potential, please send help
Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Opinion by Kes Eylers-Stephenson

Published

We thought we were short-changing you with five entries when ranked the best Horizon games, but it looks like developer Guerrilla Games is about to give us a much longer list with the potential of a Horizon series with 16 games more. Not all could be made by PlayStation Studios, but that sounds like way too much for this IP to us even though we love it.

Guerrilla Games has 16 Horizon "plans"

Guerrilla Games studio director Jan-Bart van Beek has revealed during a Develop:Brighton talk (thanks, GamesRadar) that the team has 16 plans "clicking on." Though it's not clear how far along any of these are and how many are proper development projects and how many are ideas, van Beek did say, "We're going to be continuing it for a very long while."

Subsequently, he acknowledged: "We're also going to be working on a multiplayer game." He described it as "a massive shift for the studio, almost on the same level as doing the first Horizon. Building this all out to a multiplayer experience is a whole new challenge for the studio."
The first game was Horizon Zero Dawn for PS4 in 2017. This was followed by a PS5 and PS4 sequel in 2022 called Horizon Forbidden West that followed heroine Aloy on her continued adventures through post-post-apocalypse America. We also have the spin-off Horizon Call of the Mountain on PS VR2 released in 2023. Now, with 16 possible Horizon games on the Horizon, it feels like we can safely say we know about four of them:

Upcoming Horizon games

The last time we got to critique a series entry it was for our Horizon Burning Shores review, a pretty meaty 10-hour Horizon 2.5-style DLC. It absolutely confirmed a Horizon 3 if that wasn't clear already from the end of Forbidden West. With van Beek's latest comments, it's clear that the team is hard at work on the long-rumored and now officially confirmed multiplayer game. That gives us the full list of four potential upcoming games of these supposed 16-game plans.
Kes

How much Horizon can players sustain?

I really like Horizon. I wrote our Horizon Forbidden West review on the site if you are curious about what I thought, but I am starting to wonder how long it'll be before players lose interest. Only two major games in and I'm already fine with putting it away for another five years before I pick up Horizon 3, that'd be more than enough for me.

These are 60-hour open worlds with huge DLC packs, so we're spending a lot of time in this post-apocalyptic world already. That means I've spent over 130 hours with the series in the last five-or-so years and it kind of feels like my Horizon tank is full. I think a lot of people feel the same way from the comments on this here site and from around the web. So, seeing that so four more games are probably coming and van Beek adding in a cursory potential 12 more to make up 16, I'm really hoping that Guerrilla Games and PlayStation give us help if they expect players to latch on — a reason to invest beyond, "it's Horizon."

Horizon Forbidden WestHorizon Forbidden West

There is too much of a good thing. People need rest from games in order to fall in and out of those worlds. Time away from a franchise lets you form long-lasting fond memories of games, but constantly slamming you with that IP won't let you forget about the stuff you are less fond of.

If Guerrilla Games can create content that feels so ancillary to Horizon that we forget it's even a part of the same world, I think we'll be fine. If everything looks and feels indistinguishable from the Horizon we know, much like the indistinguishable Marvel and Star Wars films and TV of late, I think people will really begin to become disenfranchised with it before Sony has even begun getting half way through these 16 game plans.

But that is just what I think of this news! What do you think? Check out our best PS5 games where Horizon features, of course, and leave a comment down below to get involved in health discussion! See you there!
Written by Kes Eylers-Stephenson
Editor Kes is our resident expert in PlayStation and other gaming news. He writes about PS5 exclusives like The Last of Us and Horizon, PS Plus news, and his favorite games — The Witcher, Assassin’s Creed, and God of War — before an evening swim.
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