This cannot possibly still be true after Concord. Even Sony isn't that dumb... Unless their only learning from that failure was that "NEW live service games will die, but it will be totally different for established IPs!". At which point I would wordlessly gesture towards Suicide Squad.
Well, they did scale back their life service plans already in december last year. And of what was left, Concord already failed. They haven't started new ones since then. I guess it is just finishing the most promising projects already in the works and cutting all the rest while they think of other ideas.
And while many life service games fail we also have successful recent ones (Wuthering Waves, Honai Star Rail, Helldivers) and we also have massive costly single player flops ( Star Wars Outlaws, Forspoken, Gollum ) and it doesn't look good for the next AC either. It is not that easy to say that life-service-games fail and single player titles thrive. Sure, life service titles have it harder, but not that much harder that every executive is willing to can all attempts. The allure of possible striking life service gold once and getting a steady revenue stream for decades is just too strong.
I have to wonder, what exactly about Horizon franchise that makes Sony obsessed with it? Granted milking of any franchise usually ends horribly, but why Horizon in particular?
- 1 I wouldn't call two main series entries "milking it".
- 2 It was a good game and a new successful Sony IP. It looks like they use Aloy a lot for branding now. Aloy and Sonic are the characters most associated with Playstation. That is why we get collabs featuring her everywhere to establish her as instantly recognized brand mascot.
I really enjoyed both Horizon games when they finally got to PC. Would play more, but certainly not a grindy life service multiplayer one.
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