Key Takeaways
- A job listing suggests the upcoming Horizon multiplayer game will change how Machines behave against teams of players.
- Guerrilla Games is looking for a Senior Machine Combat Designer to work on Horizon multiplayer.
- There is potential for new Machines, player-vs-player combat, and revamped single-player features in the new multiplayer game.
If a new job listing is to go by, the upcoming Horizon multiplayer game could change how certain Machines behave against more than one would-be scavenger. One of the many Horizon projects in development is an online multiplayer spin-off that will allow fans to take on the post-apocalyptic world of Horizon together using gameplay from the past two entries. It isn’t clear yet when this Horizon multiplayer will be shown, much less released, and there is still plenty of speculation about how the previously single-player formula of Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West will translate to a multiplayer format.
This includes one of the most defining elements of the Horizon series: the massive, animal-like Machines that Aloy hunts, tames, and rides throughout her ongoing journey. Each of these mechanical creatures has its own behaviors and functions in the ravaged world of Horizon, and players have to adjust their strategies for battling each one due to their particular movements, abilities, and weaknesses. Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West were both designed for a single player to challenge these Machines with the occasional help of NPCs, meaning that the future Horizon multiplayer title might have to modify a few things to keep things challenging for fully human-controlled raiding parties.
Related
Guerrilla’s Horizon Multiplayer Game Will Use Systems from Zero Dawn and Forbidden West
Some newly emerged insight into Guerrilla’s multiplayer game reveals its genre of choice and yields a tech connection to the mainline Horizon titles.
According to a recent job listing, Horizon developer Guerrilla Games is currently hiring a Senior Machine Combat Designer to help “update behaviors on iconic machines of the Horizon franchise as well as new machines.” While this listing doesn’t necessarily specify the project this Senior Machine Combat Designer will be working on, part of the description text mentions “provid[ing] a variety of challenges against multiple players,” which seems to indicate that the job is connected to Guerrilla’s in-development Horizon multiplayer spin-off.
Guerrilla is Hiring Senior Machine Combat Designer for a New Horizon Game
This also seems to confirm that the Horizon multiplayer game will introduce new Machines alongside old ones like the Thunderjaws and Tallnecks. In addition to the time-honored struggle between humans and Machines, the Horizon spin-off could feature player-vs-player combat thanks to the many feuding tribes in the Horizon universe. While some fans find the human enemies of past Horizon games boring in comparison to their more mechanical counterparts, having these battles against other players could add more strategy and intensity.
The past Horizon games have already provided a solid foundation for a gripping multiplayer experience in terms of setting and gameplay, and it will be interesting to see how Guerrilla Games takes the elements of its single-player offerings and revamps them for its upcoming online title. This includes the signature Machines of the Horizon franchise, and squads of players may have to prepare for some new challenges from these great metal beasts.
Horizon
The Horizon franchise follows Aloy as she is forced to contend with a series of powerful, towering robotic creatures in a post-apocalyptic landscape. The third-person action-RPG has already seen a sequel with Horizon: Forbidden West and gives players the freedom to explore the open world as they see fit.