Guerrilla strips live service from Horizon Hunters Gathering, Sony's GaaS mandate unwinds
Summary
Guerrilla is removing all live service components from Horizon Hunters Gathering after negative playtests, rebuilding it as a smaller traditional multiplayer game with a story mode
Jason Schreier reports almost all of Guerrilla has been on Hunters Gathering since 2022 - a multi-year reset for a flagship PlayStation studio
Staff have until December 2026 to hit the next milestone; reassigned devs face the same year-end review on a separate unnamed project
The pivot lands after $3.6B on Bungie, a $769M impairment, 292 Bungie layoffs, Concord's shutdown, and canceled GaaS projects at Bend, Bluepoint, God of War, Spider-Man, and The Last of Us
01
The gap between Sony's 2022 pledge and 2026 reality
In 2022, Sony told investors it would have at least 10 live service games online by 2026
The $3.6B Bungie acquisition was the operational centerpiece to seed live service capability across PlayStation Studios
Instead: a $769M impairment, 292 layoffs, Destiny 2 development ended in June 2025, Marathon missed commercial expectations
By 2023, Sony had already delayed six live service projects internally, before Concord even launched
02
The casualty list preceding the Guerrilla pivot
Concord launched August 2024, pulled after two weeks; Firewalk and Neon Koi shuttered
Live service projects canceled at Bluepoint and Bend; Bluepoint closed entirely in February 2026
GaaS projects in God of War, Spider-Man, and The Last of Us franchises all scrapped mid-development
Helldivers 2 remains the only commercially successful first-party live service title this decade
03
Guerrilla pivot: scope, timeline, and workforce impact
Two closed playtests (February-March 2026, early May) preceded the decision to strip live service entirely
Overhaul began in June 2026; game rebuilt as traditional multiplayer with story mode and reduced scope
Schreier reports almost all of Guerrilla shifted to Hunters Gathering after Horizon Forbidden West shipped in 2022
A small team continues the next single-player Horizon, described by Bloomberg sources as years from completion
04
Nishino's "revitalize" framing collides with operational retreat
In June 2025, PlayStation CEO Hideaki Nishino recommitted to live service the same week Sony laid off hundreds at Bungie
"We believe that live service games are content that attracts users on a global level, so we want to continue to revitalize the market through both first-party and third-party content"
"The genre itself is relatively new, and I think many people are trying various things, so we also want to continue to take on challenges within that context"
Framing the genre as "experimental" after a $3.6B acquisition and $769M write-down reads as reframing accumulated failure
Remaining GaaS slate - Marvel Tokon, Fairgame$, Team LFG - now looks like mandate inheritance rather than committed strategy
05
December 2026 milestone gate signals pipeline discipline over studio autonomy
Sony installed a formal year-end evaluation checkpoint at Guerrilla - triage management, not long-cycle studio autonomy
The unnamed reassignment project faces the same December deadline with no public scope or genre visibility
Sony is moving first-party studios from open-ended GaaS commitments toward scoped, evaluable milestones
What this means
For Publishers & Developers: Sony's retreat validates scoped multiplayer with story modes over open-ended GaaS - reprice competitive GaaS launches accordingly
For Investors & VC: Diligence any PlayStation-adjacent studio for GaaS exposure; the pivot pattern is now portfolio-wide, not isolated
For Service Vendors: Live ops, LiveOps analytics, and seasonal content pipelines pitched to Sony first-party face a shrinking addressable footprint through 2026
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