Horizon: Steel Frontier: How a new mobile MMORPG is changing machine combat

A new Horizon game has been announced, but it's not the sequel to Forbidden West you were expecting. It's not a single-player game, and it's not even a PlayStation game. Horizon Steel Frontiers is an MMORPG developed by NCSoft for mobile and PC. Confused? Don’t worry, we’ll break down everything revealed in the first trailer.

If the idea of ​​an online multiplayer Horizon game sounds familiar, you might have been following the original rumors As early as 2022. At first glance, it's obvious that this is a Horizon game that can be played with a team of co-op friends. The world looks very similar to what we've explored before, but this time we're heading to the Land of the Dead, a brand new area inspired by Arizona and New Mexico. There are many recognizable elements in this place, from the destroyed remnants of humanity's past, to the true star of the horizon: its giant mechanical beasts.

But let’s start with something less familiar. It's obvious that combat in Steel Frontier is different compared to its predecessor. While the single-player game focused primarily on ranged combat, using weapons like bows and arrows to shoot at enemies' weak spots, this new universe game appears to focus primarily on melee combat. The focus character in the trailer wields a giant sword, while other characters use double blades to slice through mechas. That's not to say archery has been phased out – bows are still featured throughout the trailer – but sword combat seems to be front and center.

It seems like not only the distance between you and your enemies has changed, but also a dramatic rethinking of the fundamentals of combat. The trailer shows off a charged blade ability that can be used to deflect incoming attacks, a new defensive strategy for Horizon. When it comes to attacking, you can now use the Pullcaster grappling hook to climb onto your target after destroying a specific part of the machine and place a status-inflicting trap on the damaged part. NCSoft says that such elements are part of a new approach that adapts Horizon's existing ideas to suit an MMORPG.

It's clear that a lot of Horizon's combat DNA is still there – we can see machine parts falling off during each battle, such as when the protagonist fires canisters of flame in the trailer's opening battle. Later, we can see the destroyed machine leaving resources to be recycled. But from what's been shown in the trailer, Iron Frontier seems to be more like Monster Hunter than the traditional Horizon. Executive producer Sung-Gu Lee explained that the core of the experience is “cooperation and strategy” and that “players must take on their own role,” concepts that form the basis of Monster Hunter's multiplayer adventure. Additionally, we even see some characters cooking in cutscenes, similar to the chef montages in Monster Hunter's own meal prep system. Perhaps none of this comes as a surprise, though: Horizon already has its fair share of Capcom franchises in the mix.

Other combat additions we can see in the trailer include some kind of sticky bomb that can be used to do massive damage to machines – perhaps this is one of the aforementioned traps? You can now also mount machine weapons on your mount, allowing you to transport heavy artillery from one battle to another.

Speaking of mounts, we see almost every tamable machine in Wild West being used in this trailer. It begins with the Bristleback being covered and recognized as a mount, and later we see the characters riding Sunwings and Warhorses. We also saw confirmation of a new mount: the trailer features the protagonist riding on the back of a Stalker, a Black Panther-like machine outfitted with stealth camouflage. Considering Forbidden West expands the number of mounts available, and MMORPGs are generally known for their range of mounts, it seems likely that there will be more machines to tame. With any luck, we'll finally get to pilot Thunderjaw in this game.

We actually don't see Horizon's iconic metallic T-Rex in the trailer, but there are a dozen other machines shown here, ranging from tiny to giant. The most impressive battle is a group of people against the Killing Spine, which uses many of the abilities it had in Forbidden West, including its rain of ammo. Other examples of “oh god, please don't kill me” machines include terrifying fire claws, a napalm-spewing robot bear, and a giant snake-like machine that looks like a slippery fang crossed with a rock crusher, which could very well be our first look at a new kind of metal monster.

The largest creature, though, is the Tallneck, one of which we can see a group of robot hunters trying to capture in the desert. Once again, these look like big climbing puzzles, judging by the way the characters climb up their necks.

On the smaller side we can see a warden, some herbivores, a plowhorn, a stomper, a marauder and a shellwalker…whose shells are whisked into the sky by the Shining Eagle. NCSoft seems to have a good understanding of enemy variety.

As mentioned, this world looks a lot like Horizon's iconic vision of the future. Lush green foliage has covered the ruins of human skyscrapers, people live in villages inspired by Native American tribes, and underground are vast vaults filled with advanced technology. These “Cauldrons” return from the single-player Horizons game, but can now be explored with a team of allied players. It seems like a reasonable guess that these cauldrons could be classic MMORPG dungeons from Steel Frontiers.

A lot of what we've seen so far looks pretty close to what we'd expect from a Horizon game. Steel Frontiers was developed in partnership with original developer Guerrilla, so there's no doubt a lot of effort was put into keeping the visual style and many of the game's concepts consistent. However, with South Korea's NCSoft being the main developer, you could also see more Eastern elements find their place in this universe. All the characters have an anime-like aesthetic, looking more like characters from Final Fantasy or NCSoft's own Lineage game than from the original Horizon series. It's even kind of cute when the character wears metallic cat ears—something we haven't seen the serious Aloy wear in a thousand years.

Of course, if you're a Horizon purist, you might be able to create a character in the character creator that's more in line with the aesthetics of the original game. This is an MMORPG where you don't play as Aloy or any other pre-written protagonist, but rather a character of your own design. The character creator seems pretty in-depth, and also lets you choose which tribe to join: Nora, Tenakth, Utaru, or Oseram – all groups previously established in Horizon Legends. The trailer's narration hints at competitive PvP as well as cooperative machine hunting, so your tribe might also act as your “team” in that case.

While Iron Frontier looks to include much of what we've come to expect from Horizon, from role-playing dialogue sequences to giant metal monster battles, it will undoubtedly be a new and different take on the universe that PlayStation has come to love over the past few generations. Not to mention, this is a Horizon game we'll be playing on mobile phones, not PS5. But did you spot anything new and interesting in the trailer that we missed? Let us know your astute observations and what you think of this new MMO direction in the comments below.

Matt Purslow is IGN's executive editor of features.