Guerrilla Games Aims Big for Horizon Multiplayer

Summary

• Guerrilla Games may be anticipating high player interest for its upcoming Horizon multiplayer game.
• A recent Guerrilla job listing suggests the studio is building live-service systems capable of supporting over one million players for the Horizon multiplayer game.
• Guerrilla might be taking precautionary measures to prevent server issues at the game's launch, similar to those experienced by Helldivers 2.

Guerrilla Games appears to have high hopes for its upcoming Horizon multiplayer project, which has yet to be officially revealed. The studio's confidence in the live-service title's appeal is hinted at through a recent job listing. Since the release of Horizon Forbidden West in 2022 and its Burning Shores DLC in the following year, Guerrilla has been relatively quiet, aside from collaborations on smaller projects such as Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and LEGO Horizon Adventures. However, evidence suggesting the development of a Horizon multiplayer game has been mounting since as early as 2018, with job listings consistently alluding to such a project.

Although the exact announcement date for the Horizon multiplayer game remains uncertain, a new job listing for a Senior Platform Engineer indicates ambitious plans for player numbers. The listing requires "proven experience building and operating multi-service, 1M+ user globally distributed systems across multiple public cloud providers," suggesting that Guerrilla is preparing a robust live-service infrastructure capable of supporting over one million players.

Guerrilla Might Be Ensuring a Trouble-Free Launch for the Horizon Multiplayer Game

Alternatively, this ambitious player capacity might be more of a precautionary measure to ensure a smooth onboarding process for the Horizon multiplayer game. The server issues faced by Helldivers 2 upon its launch due to unexpectedly high popularity on PS5 and PC serve as a cautionary tale. Guerrilla may be keen to avoid similar problems, ensuring a seamless experience for players from day one. While there's no guarantee that the Horizon multiplayer game will achieve the same level of success as Helldivers 2, Guerrilla's preparation is commendable.

Given that the Horizon multiplayer game has been in development for several years and assuming no significant setbacks, Guerrilla might be gearing up to unveil the live-service title this year. A previous job listing hinted at a new Horizon game release in 2025, which, given the timeline for the next mainline entry, could well be the Horizon multiplayer project.