A brand fresh Horizon game has been announced, but it’s not the sequel to Forbidden West you might have expected. This isn’t a single-player game, or even a PlayStation game. Horizon Steel Frontiers is an MMORPG game developed by NCSoft for mobile devices and PCs. Confused? Don’t worry, we’re here to discuss everything revealed in the debut trailer.
If the idea of a Horizon multiplayer online game sounds familiar, you’re probably paying attention to rumors that have already surfaced in 2022. At first glance, it’s clear that this is very much a Horizon game that can be played with a team of buddies in co-op mode. The world looks very similar to the one we explored before, but this time we will go to the Deadlands, a completely fresh region inspired by Arizona and New Mexico. There are many recognizable elements in this location, from the destroyed remnants of humanity’s past to the true stars of Horizon: its gigantic mechanical beasts.
But let’s start with something less known. It’s clear that Steel Frontiers has a different approach to combat compared to its predecessors. While single-player games largely focus on ranged combat and using weapons like bows to shoot at enemy frail spots, this fresh take on the universe seems to focus primarily on melee combat. The main character in the trailer wields a huge sword, while other characters apply dual blades to cut and pierce through the machine’s armor. This doesn’t mean archery has been eliminated – the bow still appears in the trailer – but blade fighting seems to be a major focus.
There seems to be not only a change in the distance between you and the enemy, but also a radical rethinking of the basics of combat. The trailer demonstrates the charged blade’s ability, which can be used to fend off an incoming attack, a type of defensive strategy that’s fresh to Horizon. Offensively, after destroying a specific part of the machine, you can now apply the Pullcaster to climb onto your target and place a status trap on the damaged part. NCSoft said such elements are part of a fresh approach that adapts existing Horizon ideas into an MMORPG.
It’s clear that a lot of Horizon’s combat DNA still remains – we can see parts of the machine detach in each fight, such as when the main character fires Blaze’s canister in the trailer’s opening battle. And later we see that destroyed machines leave resources to be harvested. However, from what we can see in this trailer, it seems like Steel Frontiers may be more like Monster Hunter than established Horizon. Executive producer Sung-Gu Lee explains that the core of the experience is “cooperation and strategy” and that “players must embrace their roles,” ideas that form the basis of Monster Hunter multiplayer adventures. What’s more, we even see some of the characters preparing a meal in a cutscene that resembles the chef montages from Monster Hunter’s own food preparation system. Perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising, though: Horizon has certainly featured more than a little of the Capcom series already.
Other combat attachments we can see in the trailer include a type of sticky bomb that can be used to deal massive damage to machines – perhaps one of the aforementioned traps? You now also have the option to pack machine guns on your mount, allowing you to transport weighty artillery from one battle to the next.
Speaking of mounts, we see almost every tamable machine in the Forbidden West in the trailer. It begins with Bristleback being Overpowered and taken over as a mount, and later we see characters riding Sunwings and Chargers. We also see confirmation of a brand fresh mount: the hero of the trailer rides on the back of Stalker, a Panther-like machine equipped with hidden camouflage. Given that Forbidden West has expanded the number of available mounts, and MMORPGs are typically known for their wide variety of mounts, it seems likely that even more machines will be available for taming. With any luck, this is the game where we finally get to pilot the Thunderjaw.
We don’t actually see Horizon’s iconic metallic T-Rex in this trailer, but there are a dozen other machines here, ranging from minuscule to gigantic. The most impressive fight pits the group against Slaughterspin, who uses many of Forbidden West’s abilities, including a rain of ammo. Other examples of “Oh God, please don’t kill me” machines include the terrifying Fire Claw, a napalm-spitting robo-bear, and a huge snake-like machine that looks like a Slitherfang crossed with a Rock Breaker, which is most likely our first look at a fresh breed of metal monster.
However, the largest creature is the Tallneck and we see a group of machine hunters trying to take one down in the desert. Once again, they look like huge climbing puzzles, judged by the way the characters climb up its neck.
On the smaller side we can see the Watcher, several Parasites, a Plowhorn, a Trampler, a Ravager and a Shellwalker… whose shell is lifted into the sky by Glinthawk. NCSoft seems to understand the mission when it comes to enemy variety.
As mentioned earlier, the world looks similar to Horizon’s vision of the future. Lush green foliage has overtaken the ruins of human skyscrapers, people live in villages drawing inspiration from Indian tribes, and underground there are gigantic vaults filled with advanced technology. These “Cauldrons” return from the single-player Horizon games, but now can be explored with a team of allied players. It seems reasonable to assume that these Cauldrons might be the equivalent of the classic MMORPG dungeon in Steel Frontiers.
So far, much of what we’ve seen looks very similar to what we might expect from Horizon. Steel Frontiers was created in collaboration with original developer Guerrilla, so a lot of effort has undoubtedly been put into keeping the visual style and many gameplay ideas consistent. However, since the main developer is the Korean company NCSoft, it can be noticed that more Eastern elements also find their place in this universe. All characters have an anime-like aesthetic and look more like characters from Final Fantasy or NCSoft’s own Lineage games rather than characters from the original Horizon series. There’s even a bit of cuteness when a character wears metal cat ears – something stern Aloy would never see her wear in a thousand years.
Of course, if you’re a Horizon purist, you might be able to create a character more in line with the aesthetic of the original games in the character creator. Since this is an MMORPG, you won’t play as Aloy or any other previously written hero, but a character of your own design. The character creator seems quite detailed and also allows you to choose which tribe you join: Nora, Tenakth, Utaru or Oseram – all groups established earlier in Horizon’s story. The trailer’s narrative hints at competitive PvP as well as cooperative machine hunting, so it may be that your tribe will also act as your “team” in such scenarios.
While Steel Frontiers looks like it will include a lot of what we’ve come to expect from Horizon, from RPG dialogue sequences to fights against giant metal monsters, it will certainly be a fresh and different take on the universe we’ve come to love over the last few generations of PlayStation. Not to mention, this is a Horizon game that we’ll be playing on our phones, not the PS5. But did you notice anything fresh and intriguing in the trailer that we missed? Let us know in the comments below and what you think about the fresh direction of the MMO.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s executive features editor.
