Horizon Hunters Gathering: Everything We Know About Guerrilla's Co-op Spin-off

For nearly a decade, the world of Horizon has captivated players with its breathtaking post-apocalyptic landscapes and the visceral thrill of hunting colossal, animalistic machines. The core experience, however, has been a solitary one—Aloy against the wilds. But what if you could experience that heart-pounding hunt not alone, but with a dedicated squad at your back? Guerrilla Games has answered that question with the announcement of Horizon Hunters Gathering, a bold new spin-off that reimagines the franchise’s iconic combat as a tactical, squad-based cooperative experience.

This is not Horizon 3. It is a focused, 3-player, skill-based action game with a rogue-lite twist, marking one of the most significant new directions for the series to date.

The Hunt Begins - Core Concept & Announcement

Guerrilla Games officially pulled back the curtain on Horizon Hunters Gathering, confirming it as a fully-fledged, in-house spin-off project. This announcement is significant, positioning the title as a dedicated experiment in cooperative play within a universe traditionally built for a single hero. The studio is pitching it as a “tactical, reactive, and deeply skill-based” co-op adventure, shifting the focus from a sprawling open-world narrative to intense, mission-based teamwork.

Horizon Hunters Gathering will launch on PlayStation 5 and PC with two critical modern features confirmed from the outset: cross-play and cross-progression. This ensures friends can team up regardless of platform and maintain their hard-earned progress. It’s also crucial to distinguish this project from other Horizon ventures; Horizon Hunters Gathering is a separate entity from the NCSoft-developed MMORPG, Horizon Steel Frontiers. This is Guerrilla’s own vision for multiplayer, built upon the combat foundations they know intimately.

Assembling Your Squad - Hunters, Progression & Hub

Gone is the singular focus on Aloy. Instead, players will choose from a roster of unique Hunters, each boasting distinct specializations that split broadly between melee and ranged combat philosophies. This promises to introduce classic coordinated roles—tanks, damage dealers, supports—into the machine-hunting fray, demanding strategic team composition.

Character progression gets a rogue-lite infusion. This suggests a structure where players retain persistent unlocks—like new Hunters or core gear—between sessions. However, a run-based perk system will allow for deep, temporary character build customization during each hunting expedition. This layer of strategic adaptation encourages players to tailor their loadout and abilities to both their chosen Hunter and their squadmates’ selections, ensuring variety and depth with every run.

Between missions, the action centers on the “Hunters Gathering” social hub. This is where squads will form, strategies will be discussed, and characters will be customized. It’s the operational base for upgrading gear, tweaking appearances, and preparing for the next high-stakes deployment, fostering a sense of community and shared purpose.

Mission Types - From Incursions to Cauldron Descents

Guerrilla has detailed two primary game modes that will form the core of the repeatable co-op loop. The first is Machine Incursion. This mode presents wave-based missions where your squad must withstand escalating assaults from machines, culminating in a climactic boss fight. It’s the purest expression of the game’s reactive combat, testing a team’s endurance and target-priority under pressure.

The second, and potentially more ambitious, mode is Cauldron Descent. Framed as longer, multi-stage trials, these descents will feature procedurally changing rooms and a variety of challenges. This is the key to the game’s long-term replayability. By remixing environments, objectives, and enemy placements, Cauldron Descent aims to ensure that no two hunts feel exactly the same, providing a fresh challenge even for veteran teams.

A New Look & Canon Story

One of the most immediate departures from the mainline series is the visual presentation. Horizon Hunters Gathering adopts a more stylized, almost cartoon-inspired art direction, a deliberate step away from the photorealistic beauty of Zero Dawn and Forbidden West. This shift likely serves both a stylistic purpose—to differentiate the spin-off—and a practical one, allowing for clearer visual communication of abilities, enemy attacks, and co-op mechanics in the heat of chaotic, three-player battles.

Despite its new gameplay focus, this adventure is not a narrative side-story. Guerrilla emphasizes that Horizon Hunters Gathering will feature a fully canon narrative campaign with new stories, characters, and threats. This expansion of the lore is a major draw for franchise fans. Furthermore, the studio has promised post-launch narrative content, framing the game as a live-service story that will continue to evolve, ensuring the world and its characters remain engaging beyond the initial launch campaign.

Development Vision & How to Playtest

The roots of this project run deep. Game Director Arjan Bak explained that the concept stems from long-held ideas within Guerrilla about how cooperative hunting could work in the Horizon universe. The team is drawing upon lessons learned from their deep history with competitive multiplayer in the Killzone series and, of course, the refined combat mechanics of the Horizon franchise itself.

For players eager to experience this new direction first-hand, the opportunity is coming soon. Guerrilla has announced a closed playtest scheduled for late February 2026. The path to access is straightforward: interested players on both PS5 and PC must register for the PlayStation Beta Program via the official PlayStation website. This playtest will be a crucial first look at the game’s precise, team-oriented feel. While participation in this test is the next major milestone, Guerrilla has been clear that a final release date remains unannounced, asking fans for patience as the game continues its development journey.

Horizon Hunters Gathering represents a fascinating and ambitious evolution of the franchise’s DNA. It takes the core thrill of machine combat—the tearing off of components, the dodging of deadly charges, the exploitation of elemental weaknesses—and transforms it into a dedicated social experience built on communication and combined arms tactics. With its focus on coordinated 3-player co-op, rogue-lite progression, a stylized new aesthetic, and a promise of ongoing canon story, it stands as a bold and promising new way for fans to experience the wilds of Horizon… together. The hunt is changing, and the call to assemble your squad is coming. The first step is to secure your place in the gathering.

Tags: Horizon Hunters Gathering, Guerrilla Games, Co-op Game, PlayStation 5, Horizon Zero Dawn