This morning, South Korean developer NCSOFT (Lineage, Aion, Throne and Liberty) took the stage at G-Star 2025 to announce the long-rumored Horizon Steel Frontiers MMORPG. The game, which is targeting a launch on PC and mobile, is a collaboration between the studio and franchise holder Guerrilla Games.
The announcement provided a few initial and fairly vague details, such as the region (the Deadlands, modeled after Arizona and New Mexico) the game will take place in, the fact that players will cooperate to take down machines but also compete for resources and fight against rival tribes, and the tweaks made to the combat system. The developers claim there will be new mechanics, such as climbing onto a damaged machine part with the Pullcaster to set traps and inflict status effects, picking up weapons dropped during battle, carrying them on your mount, and using them at a later time. Perhaps the biggest difference shown in the debut Horizon Steel Frontiers gameplay, though, is the addition of greatswords. Whereas Aloy only ever used a spear for melee while heavily favoring bows, it looks like this game will allow proper melee combat with parries and counterattacks.
What neither the announcement video nor the official press release mentioned was any launch window. However, NCSOFT executives spoke about it two days ago during the company's Q3 2025 earnings call. They were confident that it could launch in 2026 or early 2027 and also boasted of having received acclaim from those who had already played it.
Internally, the development has progressed pretty significantly, so we think that based on the development progress, it would be available to be launched either next year or early two years from now, but we need to discuss the specifics with the IP holder. What I want to emphasize is that significant progress has been made in development, so with refinement, we will be able to release this title, too. Everyone gave us a round of applause after viewing the demonstration and playing the game firsthand.
Of course, with game development becoming increasingly complex, especially for an MMORPG, I would say there's a solid chance we'll see it in 2027. Still, that NCSOFT thinks it could launch as early as next year suggests we could at least be able to try the game in pre-release testing events throughout 2026.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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