Guerilla Games’ Herman Holst popped on stage to unveil a new entry in the Killzone franchise called Killzone: Shadow Fall. He initially likened the title to the Cold War style divide between East and West Berlin, before we dropped into a live gameplay demonstration.
This was quite simply gorgeous, as the opening cinematic saw you flying over a vast, utopian Vekta City in the year 2381, roughly 20 years after Killzone 3. Highways filled with flying vehicles in the sky, a vast waterfall, some gorgeous rays of light beaming between skyscrapers, it’s an impressive show of graphical power leading to your arrival on a high up landing pad.
As you’re hustled through a security checkpoint, getting preferential treatment from the ISA security who recognises you as Lucas Heller, who seems to have returned from some sort of mission. you pass into an area filled with quite a few civilian NPCs just milling around.
Then it all blows up. A huge explosion rips through the building next to which you’re standing. In the aftermath, it turns out that there was a Helghan infiltrator in disguise as an ISA trooper, and after dispatching him we get to see gameplay.
There’s a new main weapon in your hands, which seems to be energy based and have a secondary sniper attachment. The cover system first introduced in Killzone 2 is back, but this element is combined with an element of slow motion, so that you can get more precise shots.
After battling past the insurgents, Heller grabbed onto a rope attached to a Helghan drop ship and takes us through a lengthy, high paced flying segment, once again showing off the scale and grandeur of the city.
The closing shot, though, managed to throw us a curve ball for the plot, as, after blowing up the drop ship, it’s revealed that this city is half Vektan and half Helghan… Also, you have some kind of suit of armour which looks special.
You get why Herman mentioned the Cold War earlier now, right?
Take a look for yourself!
Kennykazey
The scale is very impressive.
KeRaSh
Looked pretty good but I couldn’t spot most of the enemies he was shooting at behind the brown/orange mist. I’m hoping this was due to the stream.
Klart
Looking good!
RocketSOL
Stunning. Simply stunning.
kjkg
Looked unbelievable. There was so much going on. People saying it wasn’t that special obviously missed the sheer volume of what was going on, and the scale was HUGE!
LTG Davey
See /this/ is the sort of title you want at launch (assuming it is a launch title of course). With it’s online I would probably play this and nothing else for the first 6 months, making that awkward time period after launch where there are no new games, less of an issue. I think that is where the Wii-U went wrong. All of their launch exclusives were around 5 hours long.
The Von Braun
The PS3 KZ2 ‘reveal’ (fake as it was) had a far greater impact on me, i knew PS4 KZ would look wonderous, as Gureilla delivered the goods, visually on PS3 and PSP and Vita KZ looks stunning as well.Game engine no doubt pulling off a lot of processor intensive effects etc, all very next gen yadda yadda.
My concerns are really just what Guerilla have learnt from KZ3-i.e are we this time going to get a tighter story, some new, original ideas for a FPS or even: more cinematics, same tired old set pieces etc, just looking even better?
I’ve completed KZ 1-3 (and Liberation), so looking for something very different this time around, Sony has a chance here to re-define the Sci-Fi FPS, chances are they won’t though and then you’ll see likes of EDGE do what they always do:
Score it at 7/10 (after months of multi-page previews), moan ragged that it’s offering nothing new, is too cliched whilst giving Halo 5, which suffers exactly the same flaws, 10/10.
You mark my words. :-)
Moshbag
Maybe it was my imagination but the guy playing was really struggling to me, he couldn’t hit a bucket with a barn door! He was probably really nervous, at least that proves it was a live demo.
Regardless, I thought it looked lovely, some dodgy animations on the NPCs at the beginning, but the animation of the gun switching to sniper mode and back was enough to get me excited.
MICKY17
That looks brilliant. Love the Killzone series so this is a must buy. Please be a launch title!!