Sony and NCSoft are preparing to expand the Horizon franchise into online territory with Horizon Steel Frontiers, a new MMO built for mobile platforms and also planned for PC. A leaked promotional video — containing developer interviews, cinematic material, and early gameplay — outlines a project that reshapes the series’ familiar single-player format into a shared world focused on large-scale encounters with mechanical creatures.
According to the footage, Horizon Steel Frontiers takes place in a region called the Deathlands, an environment inspired by parts of Arizona and New Mexico. Instead of following Aloy, the protagonist of the mainline games, players will create their own characters and take on the role of machine hunters. Pre-alpha clips show groups traversing varied terrain, including overgrown landscapes and remnants of industrial architecture, in encounters that resemble scaled-up versions of the Horizon combat loop. The visuals and design language are consistent with earlier entries, though clearly adapted for mobile hardware.
Jan-Bart van Beek of Guerrilla Games describes the project as a full MMORPG developed specifically with mobile devices in mind, emphasizing a blend of cooperation and competition as thousands of players occupy the same frontier. The footage suggests conventional MMO elements such as resource gathering, tribal conflict, and large enemy encounters that require coordinated play. These additions shift the Horizon formula toward a structure typical of persistent online worlds, where player interaction becomes central to progression.
Executive producer Sung-Gu Lee from NCSoft says the appeal of the original games — hunting massive machines — forms the basis of Steel Frontiers. To support this, new mechanics appear to allow players to retrieve dropped machine weapons and transport them on mounts for use in later battles. This approach reflects NCSoft’s history with MMO combat systems, though it remains to be seen how deeply these mechanics integrate with the Horizon universe’s established lore and combat style.
Character creation also receives attention, marking a break from the series’ focus on a defined protagonist. The choice to move away from Aloy signals the developers’ intention to build a player-driven ecosystem rather than extend the single-player narrative directly. Whether longtime fans embrace this shift will likely depend on how well the game balances accessibility with the depth expected from a large-scale online title.
The leak appears to have been unintentional, with promotional art and a publicly accessible video link found on a site used for distributing press assets. Sony and NCSoft have not commented on the early release of these materials, and the video does not specify a launch date beyond indicating that the team aims to make the game available as soon as possible. With G-Star 2025 underway, an official announcement may follow, offering clarity on release timing and how Steel Frontiers fits into Sony’s broader strategy for extending Horizon beyond console-exclusive storytelling.
