PlayStation has announced it will be holding a playtest for Horizon Hunters Gathering this weekend. If you’re sure you already had something else on and won’t be able to make it, that might be because Marathon, another PlayStation-published live service game, is running its server slam at the same time.
PlayStation Is Running Its Horizon And Marathon Playtests At The Same Time
Details about Horizon Hunters Gathering’s upcoming playtest reveal that it will begin this Friday, February 27, 2026, and run through March 1. The game will only be accessible at certain times (between 7 pm and 10 pm CET in Europe, and from 4 pm until 7 pm PST in the US), and will run on both PS5 and Steam.
Marathon’s server slam, a test to ensure the game will be ready to handle the strain ahead of its full release on March 5, begins a little earlier, on February 26, and ends a day later, on March 2. Marathon will be open 24/7 on all platforms during its test, and the entirety of the Hunters Gathering playtest will take place while that server slam is ongoing.
That has left people a little confused, to say the least. Hunters Gathering is developed by Guerrilla, and Marathon is developed by Bungie. Live service games both created by studios owned by PlayStation. With that in mind, you’d have thought someone at PS Towers would have had the wherewithal to step in and question whether running tests for both games simultaneously is a good idea.
Why Does Horizon’s Playtest Need To Happen This Weekend?
Replies to the news that Hunters Gathering will be running a playtest alongside Marathon’s server slam are, unsurprisingly, filled with people asking why PlayStation would do this. Some have also astutely pointed out that running either test on the same weekend that Resident Evil Requiem releases is probably ill-advised. Sure, PlayStation has nothing to do with that, but it still chose this weekend specifically to run tandem live service network tests.
It might not seem like a big deal to some, and there’s even an argument to be made that Horizon and Marathon, for the most part, won’t be pulling from the same player base. However, at a time when PlayStation doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing in a lot of regards, running two playtests at the same time will only make things worse for its already incredibly troubled live service aspirations.
Several of PlayStation’s live service projects – God of War, The Last of Us, Spider-Man – have been canceled. Marathon and Hunters Gathering have managed to survive the cull, and you’d hope PlayStation has rigorous plans in place to try and make sure they succeed. This playtest clash suggests otherwise, and it comes on the heels of the still-baffling Bluepoint closure, a decision which some have, albeit unfairly, blamed on Marathon.
