Horizo n Forbidden West received a fairly positive response when it launched in February, with publisher Sony and developer Guerilla Games already announcing a sequel. Players know little about the upcoming Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Guerilla Games only revealed that it's a VR spin-off game with a new protagonist.
However, the call of the mountain may be different from more than that. The trademark application indicates that the game is most likely a cloud gaming exclusive game and cannot be downloaded and played by players.
According to the WIPO database, Sony Interactive Entertainment submitted the international trademark document for Horizon: The Call of the Mountains in early January. This is standard practice for new IPrs. However, Sony chose to classify Call of the Mountain as "non-downloadable game software". This is a subset of Class 41 trademarks and generally applies to non-interactive educational content, but also covers certain video streaming services and TELEVISION programs.
In addition to the aforementioned Class 41, Sony has also applied for a trademark under Class 9, which covers all computer programs. Neither category is surprising in itself, and Microsoft's Halo Infinite takes the same approach. But Halo: Infinity's category 9 description focuses on subsections that apply to sports and cultural events. The Application for Call of the Mountain specifically uses terms such as "online", "web-based" and "non-downloadable".
Notably, Sony described Horizon: The Call of the Mountain as downloadable in the trademark's Class 9 description. One explanation for this apparent paradox is that players can choose to download Call of the Mountain or play cloud games from Sony's servers. However, Halo: Infinity can also be used for download and cloud gaming, and its trademark does not need to be submitted under both software categories.
In addition, another possible explanation is that players can directly choose to play Call of the Mountain in cloud games without having to subscribe to additional services. The cloud game Halo: Infinity requires an additional subscription to the XGPU, which is also the difference between the two. However, all this is just speculation.
It's too early to say that this trademark filing confirms that Horizon: Call of the Mountains is an exclusive product of cloud gaming, and we know very little about the game. Aside from short blog posts and short videos released in January, players have little to guess and analyze.
Aside from the new protagonists mentioned above, the new storytime, and the fact that it will be optimized for the PlayStation VR 2, neither Sony nor Guerilla Games has much information. Hopefully, Sony will provide more details this year. Horizon: Call of the Mountains is in development and has no release date yet.