Just days ago, NCSoft and Guerrilla Games revealed the long-anticipated MMO set within Sony's Horizon universe, Horizon Steel Frontiers, and it looked like just about everything you might've expected from a Horizon MMO, which is to say that it looks like it'll be extremely fun and exciting to play. But, surprisingly, the reveal carried one glaring omission: it's not coming to PS5; it'll only launch on PC and mobile.
Why a new game made in collaboration with one of Sony's first-party PlayStation Studios, based on a Sony-owned, first-party IP, is not coming to Sony's flagship console is the million-dollar question surrounding Horizon Steel Frontiers, and in an interview with Japanese publication 4Gamer (spotted by Eurogamer), we get a bit of insight into the answer behind that million-dollar question.
According to NCSoft executive producer Lee Song, the studio has no problem bringing Horizon Steel Frontiers to PS5. In fact, it wants to deliver the game on PS5. So why wasn't PS5 one of the listed platforms when it was revealed? Well, it appears we'll have to ask Sony.
NCSoft has "no reason," Song said, not to bring the game to PS5. "We would like to do it," he added, "but it is not something we can decide on our own, so we would like to proceed with discussions."
So if NCSoft is gun-ho to bring Horizon Steel Frontiers to PlayStation consoles, the remaining conclusion is that Sony is, for reasons unknown, blocking the game from its flagship console.
Perhaps it will eventually come to PS5, but Sony wants it to launch elsewhere as part of its plans to expand its reach outside of the PlayStation ecosystem on other platforms. Perhaps it figures that there's already a fan base of Horizon fans who will play Steel Frontiers on PS5 whenever it arrives on the console, but it would prefer to try and build a base of players on mobile and PC first, before going to the players it knows will buy into Steel Frontiers whenever it arrives on PlayStation.
Or perhaps Sony doesn't want Steel Frontiers on PlayStation at all, to keep a differentiating line between the experiences it delivers to console and the ones it'll bring to PC and mobile. All we can do is speculate, until Sony provides an answer, if it ever does. But at least we know who to ask.
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