Earlier this week, PlayStation decided to drop the announcement of a random Horizon game on a Thursday afternoon right after a Nintendo Direct with absolutely zero fanfare — not exactly the smartest move. Despite that, Horizon Heroes Gathering managed to drum up a little bit of attention, though unfortunately for developer Guerrilla, not a lot of its is particularly popular.
Now, it’s worth noting that the online reaction to the Horizon series has always been rather negative, ranging from general dismissiveness about the games themselves, to people being weird about Aloy literally because she’s a woman. Reactions to Heroes Gathering’s rather inclusive cast have been similarly toxic on sites like Twitter, but it seems as though even Horizon fans aren’t feeling this one.
Horizon Fans Are Upset With Heroes Gathering’s Announcement
On the Horizon subreddit, you’ll find a range of complaints from fans of the series, saying things like Heroes Gathering was forced upon Guerrilla as part of its big live-service push, expressing disappointment that this probably means another proper Horizon game is further away, or just a general dismissal of the game’s Fortnite-esque art style.
“This is probably a Sony push tbh,” says a user called SnooSketches3386. “They have an obsession with trying to break into live service and keep failing.” Guerrilla has stated that Heroes Gathering has been an idea the studio has had for a while, though it’s not really confirmed whether the idea was a result of PlayStation’s live service push.

Horizon’s Movie Adaptation Is Already Set Up For Success
But will Sony pull it off, or will we have another failure on our hands?
“Quite honestly, my biggest disappointment with it is Horizon 3 is probably going to be another 3+ years and by that time I feel there will be horizon fatigue in the gaming world,” says a user called Worldly-Doctor-1072. “Such a massive mistake imo to expand before finishing the trilogy.”
“Yeah, as much as the art style is fun, it just does not fit in universe for me,” says GoldenEclipse14. “What tribes are half the characters even supposed to be? Have we ever seen a character with dyed hair like that? It just feels more like characters shoved into the world than actually born in it.”
Of course, there are some believers in there that are adopting a more sensible “wait and see” approach to the whole thing, which is definitely what you should do when it comes to new experiences. However, it’s safe to say that a lot of the reaction to Horizon Heroes Gathering has been either pretty tepid, or just outright negative, so we’ll have to see how this shakes out for Guerrilla in the long run.