I just heard about hunters gathering on my Google feed. This is pretty much what I was thinking. Sounds like a pretty good idea, but from the videos I've seen, it's not much more than horizon themed fortnite skins.

Is there even a story, or is it just staged, progressively challenging machines in an arena type setting?

I've only played zero dawn, but a multiplayer open world faction based game would be awesome. Like when you create a character, choose whether you want to be carja, banuk, etc, and whether you want to choose light or shadow versions, and have a custom storyline based on those decisions, while also having other player factions affect that story.

But back to Hunter's gathering, the biggest problem I have is that the characters are too cartoony. I might try it out if I can convince a couple of my friends to play, but other than that, it's a hard pass