Rumors are circulating that a known MMORPG developer based in South Korea made be working on an MMO game set in the Horizon: Zero Dawn universe. The studio named in the agreement with Sony has a long history of developing MMORPGs.

Sony has been rumored to expand some of its first-party franchises into live-service multiplayer games. The Horizon franchise has been rumored to be getting one of these games often aligned with something along the lines of a Monster Hunter-style game. Now, a potential partnership between Sony and a Korean MMORPG developer is offering a new angle in the Horizon multiplayer game conversation.

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Korean website MTN has spoken to sources within developer NCsoft, claiming that the studio has entered a partnership with Sony to develop an MMORPG game in the Horizon universe. It is said that Sony and NCsoft reached an agreement on November 8 and the developer is recruiting staff to work on "Project H" in job listings. As of writing, Sony has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of this partnership.

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NCsoft's catalog mostly consists of MMORPGs in a variety of styles and includes the Lineage series and Guild Wars 2. NCsoft is reportedly pulling staff from various projects in pre-production moves to begin development on "Project H." VGC also corroborates the reports from MTN and found a job listing for a Senior Social Systems Designer. With this partnership newly agreed upon, official news of this game may be months or years down the line.

The conversation about Sony developing more multiplayer live-service games has picked up steam in the months after it purchased Destiny 2 developer Bungie. Bungie is also rumored to be reviving Marathon as an Escape From Tarkov Survival Shooter. Sony has The Last of Us Factions game from Naughty Dog nearing completion and a recently announced online co-op game being developed by PlayStation London Studio as well. With reports that Sony could be looking to launch up to 10 live-service games by 2026, the roster of potential titles is beginning to fill out.

A multiplayer Horizon game can be inspired by that universe's pre- or post-apocalyptic setting. Though the outcome of the Faro plague is a losing war, players still may partake in massive battles against the machine horde. The franchise's post-apocalyptic setting could also be used in a way that could see players live in the world during The Derangement and the Red Raids and flesh out some story elements that are only referenced in Horizon: Zero Dawn and Horizon: Forbidden West.

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Source: MTN, VGC