Guerrilla Games' Horizon Multiplayer: A Million-Player Ambitions or a Preemptive Strike?
Guerrilla Games' upcoming Horizon multiplayer game is generating significant buzz, with recent evidence suggesting ambitious player projections or perhaps a cautious approach to avoid launch-day server issues. A recent job posting for a Senior Platform Engineer reveals a requirement for experience with "1M+ user globally distributed systems," hinting at a potential player base exceeding one million.
Since Horizon Forbidden West's 2022 release and its Burning Shores DLC, Guerrilla has remained relatively quiet, aside from collaborations on projects like Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and LEGO Horizon Adventures. However, the existence of a Horizon multiplayer game has been hinted at through job listings dating back to 2018, making its eventual release almost certain.
While the official announcement remains pending, the job listing's focus on large-scale, globally distributed systems suggests significant player expectations. Guerrilla may be building a robust live-service infrastructure capable of handling over a million concurrent users.
Alternatively, this could be a preventative measure to avoid the server issues that plagued Helldivers 2 at launch. The unexpected popularity of Helldivers 2 on PS5 and PC overwhelmed its servers for weeks, impacting both new and returning players. Guerrilla may be proactively designing to prevent a similar scenario for its Horizon multiplayer title, regardless of whether it achieves comparable success.
The Horizon multiplayer game has been in development for years. Considering this, and a previous job listing suggesting a new Horizon game release in 2025, it's highly probable that this refers to the anticipated multiplayer project. A reveal in 2025 seems increasingly likely.
