Why NCSOFT’s Horizon Steel Frontiers is skipping PlayStation — for now

The promotion image of NCSOFT's Horizon Steel Frontiers / Courtesy of NCSOFT

NCSOFT’s upcoming mobile title Horizon Steel Frontiers (HSF) is drawing strong global interest, as the Korean game developer’s attempt to bring Sony’s Horizon franchise — a console megahit — into a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) format has fueled fan expectations following the release of its recent teaser video.

Fans of the franchise are questioning why HSF is limited to mobile and PC platforms despite NCSOFT’s interests in developing a console version, expressing that they want to play HSF on the franchise’s strong home turf of PlayStation.

NCSOFT premiered video footage of the pre-alpha version of HSF during the G-STAR 2025 game convention in Busan on Nov. 13, announcing that the game will likely debut as early as late 2026.

Developed by Dutch-based Guerrilla Games, the Horizon franchise is one of the key titles for Sony’s PlayStation devices, gaining global popularity with its unique setting of tribal humans hunting advanced, animal-like machines. As of July 2025, it has sold more than 38 million copies worldwide.

Gameplay of Horizon Steel Frontiers / Captured from official gameplay video

Building on the franchise’s apocalyptic setting and its signature battles against massive mechanical creatures, HSF is being developed to shift from the original single-player format to strategic cooperation among users on both PC and mobile.

With positive early responses, users are leaving comments under the YouTube clips of HSF questioning why the title is not coming to PlayStation 5 (PS5). “Imagine making a Zelda game and not launching it on Nintendo Switch,” a user wrote on the announcement video clip. Another user wrote, “This looks amazing and as a Horizon fan, this not coming to PS5 is a slap in the face.”

Upon releasing the teaser video clips, Lee Sung-gu, executive producer of HSF and vice president of NCSOFT, said during interviews with foreign media that NCSOFT has “no reason” not to launch on PS5, but it is not something “we can decide on our own.”

NCSOFT Vice President Lee Sung-gu introduces Horizon Steel Frontiers at G-STAR 2025 game convention in Busan, Nov. 13. Yonhap

NCSOFT declined to elaborate on why the game is currently excluded from PS5, but industry officials say the answer can be found in Sony’s current policy direction and Guerrilla Games’ attempt to launch its own Horizon multiplayer title.

Sony has long been taking a conservative approach in managing its key intellectual properties (IP), licensing out key franchises such as God of War, The Last of Us, Uncharted and Horizon directly through its own subsidiaries under PlayStation Studios, allowing external companies to use these IP under official licenses only in very limited cases. Guerilla Games is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Against the backdrop, selecting NCSOFT as its partner for a Horizon title is viewed as a rare case.

“When the partnership was first rumored, it was seen as a miracle,” an industry official said. “Sony is known for being extremely conservative in licensing out its core IP, and Guerrilla Games has also been developing its own live-service multiplayer title, assumed to be Horizon 3, for several years.”

Gameplay of Horizon Steel Frontiers / Captured from official gameplay video

Game industry officials here say that the partnership is a sign that Sony acknowledges NCSOFT as one of the top developers in the MMORPG and mobile gaming sector, and at the same time it was an inevitable choice for Sony, which has been struggling in live-service games. Live-service games are known to be more profitable than traditional single-player oriented games due to its structure enabling long-term monetization.

In 2022, Sony announced that it will develop and release 12 live-service games by 2025, but later changed the plan to launch eight by the end of fiscal year 2025, which ends on March 31, 2026.

Sony’s live-service game strategy has been questioned, as only a limited number of titles in the category have achieved success. Concord, a first-person shooter released on Aug. 23, was shut down in less than two weeks due to weaker-than-expected performance and low player numbers, with full refunds issued to all purchasers.

“Given Sony’s track record and efforts in live-service games, it seems reasonable for them to partner with NCSOFT, which is a specialist in MMORPGs and live-service games,” another industry official said.

“Despite such a decision, placing a barrier that prevents the most loyal core fanbase on PlayStation from accessing the title seems like a choice that can limit the IP’s expansion in a broader perspective… For the game’s global success, stakeholders may have to monitor user feedback closely and develop the title in line with player expectations.”