Killzone PS3 rumors & facts meltdown (what we've heard so far)

[Wollan]

As a fan of the original game I'm very hyped for the sequel and I just thought it would be nice to post everything 'reputable' we've heard about the sequel:










- Killzone 1 sold over 2 million copies worldwide (which includes Platinum sales. It sold best in Europe actually which is a change from the norm regarding fps games).

- E3 2005 trailer was made by CG company 'Axis'.

- Guerrilla was bought by Sony in December 2005 and was then welcomed into the 1st party family.

- Team that worked on the original consisted of ~60individuals. Now there are over 130 employees at Guerrilla (with Sony Cambridge helping out with additional modeling).

- Killzone PS3 will have episodic content released online after launch Phil Harrison said a good while ago (as demonstrated by Half-life 2 and with Guerrilas own Killzone Liberation).
He has also talked about Sony testing out a PS3 app in that you can record videos of actual gameplay taking place. It was said that they were going to demonstrate this with a title in 07..

- Phil Harrison has said that some aspects of the game is already past what was seen in the cg trailer (for reference, he also thinks MotorStorm lived up to it's trailer). Killzone will not be shown before he thinks it is ready (that time is now pretty much confirmed to be E3, July 11th-13th).

- In an interview with a Guerrilla employee last year it was revealed that Killzone PS3 will have much more languages options than normal for games. Statistics has shown that games with good localization usually sells 20-30% more the employee being interviewed stated. This push for a increased amount of localization is also being reflected in other 1st party PS3 titles like MotorStorm and the upcoming Heavenly Sword.

- Killzone PS3 is the most expensive media production ever in the Netherlands with a budget past 21million $ (which was the previous record set by Paul Verhoeven's recent WW2 movie Zwartboek).

- Luke Smith @ 1up.com has heard some talk about Guerrilla having had the game working online for over a year (comments by Guerrilla employees on Sony's own PlayStation boards as far back as 2005 indicate them playing a secret project online daily).

- With Sony and Immersion having kissed and made up surely Killzone PS3 must include the necessary coding for rumble functionality for whenever a redesigned controller shows up (the first PS3 game which supports rumble and feedback is already released which is GTHD v1.2/2.0).

- At GDC during the Home presentation a trophy showing a Helghast character was seen displayed in the Hall of Fame area, players personal showroom for game accomplishments. With Killzone PS3 most likely being released after the release of Home we can expect the game to fully support it (The first PS3 game to support it will be LAIR which releases in July). Since Killzone is one of SCE's larger games I'm sure there will be a Home space dedicated to the franchise as well.

- Phil Harrison mentioned on the GameTheory podcast that all Sony 1st party devs are sharing technology between each other to some degree so that would include Guerrilla (Naughty Dog have also referred directly to Guerrilla as a team they were in talks with).

- The technical director recently said in an article that almost everything in Killzone 2 will be destroyable. No longer will a big tanks stop because of a fence (which will now be crushed to the ground). Trees for example can now be cleared away with a rocket launcher. They had a lot of technical problems working on the PS2 he said but now they are able to fulfill their vision with the PS3 hardware.

- At GDC a tech demo set in the Killzone universe was displayed. It showed both Helghast and ISA shooting each others in both claustrophobic indoor environments as well as larger outdoor areas and cityscapes with impressive physics to boot.
"The best way to describe how the aftermath looked is that it's "BLACK" for the next generation" IGN said.
"As with the previous Killzone trailer, the game looks like it has the potential to make quite a splash for the PlayStation 3 if it delivers on its promise. The action looks fast and detailed, and it seems to be covering all the right bases. The visuals are looking sharp, and the vast scale of the outdoor areas is impressive, while the indoor spaces we saw were good and claustrophobic." Gamespot states. GameReactor has the following impression:

Contrary to what you may have heard Killzone 2 was at GDC. A trailer was shown at a pre-keynote speech press briefing that we attended. It was, said Sony boss Phil Harrison, to showcase what can be done with the PlayStation Edge developer tools, not the game. But we'll see. Due to Sony restrictions, you can't see it on the net. But it went like this... Heavy, doom-laden classical music kicks in. An urban warzone appears. It looks like in-game action - genuine in-game action. The Helghast are in a shootout with human commandos. It looks dusty, but also quite beautiful. The humans are losing the battle, and several dart into a nearby house. One falls - in super slow motion - as he reaches the door, showcasing how superb the character models are. His compatriots have no time to help and run inside, pursued by the Helghast. Outside, a massive tank rolls into view, thundering off blasts into alleyways. The screen darkens again. "More at E3 in July 2007," says the message. We breathe out, impressed if not blown away. Some have griped about it not looking the equal of that E3 trailer. It's true that it doesn't, but it still looks excellent to us. Killzone 2 breaks cover in July, and we'll be first with details.

Update: A Guerrilla employee has since revealed that the GDC video was a collection of multiplayer footage.

- Some new Killzone PS3 weapons arsenal details have arrived and it can be found in post 426 onwards.

- Apparently the graphical engine powering Killzone 2 is using a technique called Deferred Lighting Rendering. Guerrilla will be at the Develop conference in July 24th to 26th in Brighton to detail this further (this is after Killzone 2 has had it's E3 reveal on July 11th).

Deferred rendering in Killzone 2 Michal Valient, Guerrilla-Games Next generation gaming brought high resolutions, very complex environments and large textures to our living rooms. With virtually every asset being inflated, it's hard to use traditional forward rendering and hope for rich, dynamic environments with extensive dynamic lighting. Deferred rendering, on the other hand, has been traditionally described as a nice technique for rendering of scenes with many dynamic lights, that unfortunately suffers from fill-rate problems and lack of anti-aliasing and very few games that use it were published. In this talk, we will discuss our approach to face this challenge and how we designed a deferred rendering engine that uses multi-sampled anti-aliasing (MSAA). We will give in-depth description of each individual stage of our real-time rendering pipeline and the main ingredients of our lighting, post-processing and data management. We'll show how we utilize PS3's SPUs for fast rendering of a large set of primitives, parallel processing of geometry and computation of indirect lighting. We will also describe our optimizations of the lighting and our parallel split (cascaded) shadow map algorithm for faster and stable MSAA output. Take Away The session will provide detailed overview and optimizations of modern rendering engine and parallel processing. Many of the topics are applicable for various gaming platforms. CODING LECTURE

Update: SecondIntention, a New Zealand tech firm has been partnering with Guerrilla since 2005 on the lighting and shadowing aspect of their engine among other things.
Source 1
Source 2

- OMG. Sony are sending out E3 Killzone 2 invites for a standalone event to take place straight after the MS keynote on July 10 and the day before Sony's actual keynote. This is going to be big.

- Also during E3, there will be two trains running around Santa Monica with unknown contents related to Killzone 2.


PS! Some comments by Tempy (our local Helghast) in post #43 for the original topic post.



Story development:

- Joris De Man, music composer for the games (not employed at Guerrilla anymore but still doing the music) may have revealed in an interview last autumn that in Killzone PS3 there will be a third race and/or faction. (Or maybe not, look @ post #23.)

- The backstory of the Helghast consist of them getting shun from humanity and then going on the biggest exodus of all mankind and finally settling down on Helgan the planet (which transformed them from simple human beings into something stronger aka the Helghast). Pre Killzone 1 the Helghast Empire was defeated in the First Helghan War but so far nothing of that has been expanded on just yet so we will see if it is mentioned in the PS3 sequel.

- At the end of Killzone Liberation, Vekta is seemingly liberated. The orbital defense forces destroyed most of the Helghast fleet at the end of KZ1 and in the PSP game all ground troops were taken care of seemingly. At the end of KZ Liberation the ISA forces mention that they are going to throw everything they have at Helgan itself (the home world of the Helghast). This is also reflected in the E3 2005 trailer as it seems like the ISA forces are attacking what appears to be a Helghast High Command base of some sort.



Now open:
www.killzone.com (PSP focused until E3)

[Musashi Wins!]

I hope this launches in 07.

I don't understand high confidence, or being a huge fan of the first game. At best, it was a glimpse of a good idea that totally didn't come together. But I like the style (ie. art concept) of the game a lot. More than Halo or GoW, etc. It just needs a good game to bring it together and I'm totally in.

[LAMBO]

- Killzone 1 sold over 2 million copies.

Holy crap

[Luckyman]

what

[Smokey]

Anyone got anything to add?

There's a 98% chance it'll show at GDC?

[EverSoTrendy]

Were there any Helghast women in the game, because I only remember seeing bald men. I mean how do they reproduce?

[Wollan]

The art and the music side of the game was terrific. Also, the gameplay had some really interesting aspects to it like the sprint/rodeo run, the ability to leap over objects, grenade cooking, instant death melee..etc. And these abilities looked absolutely awesome animation wise and I can't wait to possibly see a perfect follow-through on this for the PS3 version. Also, the games arsenal and enemy are top notch. Great stuff.

[Shompola]

Were there any Helghast women in the game, because I only remember seeing bald men. I mean how do they reproduce?

Zentradi

[Hiro_Kunimi_80]

- Killzone 1 sold over 2 million copies.

believe (aka, " no way " )

[theBishop]

heh, this thread is Luke Smith bait.

[methane47]

- Rumors say that a good amount of people that worked on Outcast 1 & 2 now works at Guerrilla.

Wait a second ... there's an Outcast PART 2!?!?!?! WHERE CAN I GET THIS!! I loved part one.

I just found this pic is it real?


Sorry for getting OT

[Wollan]

Wait a second ... there's an Outcast PART 2!?!?!?! WHERE CAN I GET THIS!! I loved part one.

It was on it's way to PC & PS2 but got cancelled.

[Forsete]

- Joris De Man, music composer for the games (not employed at Guerrilla anymore but still doing the music) may have revealed in an interview last autumn that in Killzone PS3 there will be a third race.

It would be kinda cool if this developed like in FreeSpace 1.. Humans at war with race X, enter race Y which is a much bigger threat. Humans and X are forced to unite.

[AgentOtaku]

I'm diggin this thread :)

[Shawn128]

Wait a second ... there's an Outcast PART 2!?!?!?! WHERE CAN I GET THIS!! I loved part one. I just found this pic is it real? Sorry for getting OT

That woman in the background looks like Whitney Houston

[EverSoTrendy]

It was on it's way to PC & PS2 but got cancelled.

I remember that shit. Holy crap did that look awesome.

[Kaitei grunkan]

I wonder if KZ PS3 will be like the first game and have more than one playable character. It added a lot to the replay imo.

[Forsete]

I wonder if KZ PS3 will be like the first game and have more than one playable character. It added a lot to the replay imo.

I think it will. That was a pretty big feature for KZ1.

[Wollan]

I wonder if KZ PS3 will be like the first game and have more than one playable character. It added a lot to the replay imo.

Regarding that, Hakha went awol in KZ Liberation. I guess there's a interesting story tidbit to go with that. Also, KZPS3 needs more Luger/Templar sexual tention.

[Doom_Bringer]

You are too hyped up about this game... Honestly I rather have Resistance 2 because Insomniac >>>>>> Guerrilla

[nelsonroyale]

Wait a second ... there's an Outcast PART 2!?!?!?! WHERE CAN I GET THIS!! I loved part one. I just found this pic is it real? Sorry for getting OT

worst photoshop ever hahha, thats the first games case photoshopped with a crappy 2 and ps2 logo.

Anyway, members of appeal (outcast team) is the biggest draw for me...I never bothered with the first by the way

peace

[Forsete]

Also, KZPS3 needs more Luger/Templar sexual tention.

No that was corny. ;)

[PjotrStroganov]

It would be kinda cool if this developed like in FreeSpace 1.. Humans at war with race X, enter race Y which is a much bigger threat. Humans and X are forced to unite.

Actually, I extensively talked to one of the people who was responsible for this rumor and have come to the conclusion that it probably is not true.

de Man said there would be another enemy than the Helghast in Killzone 2. People who have finished Liberation probably already know what the most probable second enemy will be: Templers buddy Rico, who seems to have defected to the other side. So the enemy you will be fighting could just as well be humans that turned against the defending forces.

[Doom_Bringer]

by another enemy they probably mean some kind of alien force. gotta make it more like Halo

[ypo]

"Killzone PS3 will have episodic content released online after launch."

Game automatically crap confirmed.

[TheIkariWarrior]

whenever Killzone PS3 appears, I am confident it will look as good as, if not better than, the E3 2005 trailer.



trying very hard to hold a straight face.

[Shapingo]

by another enemy they probably mean some kind of alien force. gotta make it more like Halo

Maybe halfbreed helgast/humans, like Hakka.

[teepo]

outcast was a fannntastic game

[Forsete]

Actually, I extensively talked to one of the people who was responsible for this rumor and have come to the conclusion that it probably is not true.

Ah, ok. :/ Well, could be quite cool. TURN OF EVENTS!

[Doom_Bringer]

Hakka.

hmmm hakka style chow mein. Yummy

[nelsonroyale]

outcast was a fannntastic game

one of the best ever

[bouc_emissaire]

Great post.
Can't wait for the GDC.
I hope Phil Harrisson will do a great show (even if that's just a professionnal show) and will do a big hype with a Kill Zone PS3 new trailer

[Raistlin]

- Rumors say that a good amount of people that worked on Outcast 1 & 2 now works at Guerrilla.

That's some interesting news I hadn't heard before. Sounds good.

- Naughty Dog just recently mentioned that Guerrilla was one of few companies they were in heavy talks with in relation to tech sharing.

o_0

Okay ... that's REALLY interesting news I hadn't heard before. Sounds ****ing great!

[Bad_Boy]

Were there any Helghast women in the game, because I only remember seeing bald men. I mean how do they reproduce?

IIRC You never fought on the Helghast planet (fought on the human planet Vekta), so its understandable if most of the Helgast soldiers are male. Helghast were just humans who adapted to another planet so they should have females.

Killzone 2 is rumored to have parts on the Helghan planet so its possible there might be civilians/women seen. If this is the case, we might see more Helghast without their helmets, and the ISA with helmets on. Which should be interesting.

[Busty]

- E3 2005 trailer was made by CG company 'Axis'.

It's my understanding that AXIS were responsible for the CGI in the first KILLZONE game, they weren't responsible for that now infamous E3 trailer.

I really hope that Killzone ends up looking exactly the trailer in very way, no matter how big the ask. The reason is because frankly I'm becoming more and more disillusioned with these next gen consoles.

But that's something for another thread.

[Wollan]

It's my understanding that AXIS were responsible for the CGI in the first KILLZONE game, they weren't responsible for that now infamous E3 trailer.

I'm not totally sure but I believe they did actually (at least I've seen talks about it). Didn't they make the intro for the PSP game as well? Would be weird if they used another company to do that one in particular (or themselves since a trailer like that most likely would take around ~6 months to make).

[element]

It's my understanding that AXIS were responsible for the CGI in the first KILLZONE game, they weren't responsible for that now infamous E3 trailer.

some guy from axis posted his resume and had the E3 clip listed. And also there have been some clips of RAW maya previews.

[CrushDance]

some guy from axis posted his resume and had the E3 clip listed. And also there have been some clips of RAW maya previews.

link?

[Doom_Bringer]

link?

its pretty old and i bet he took it ofline. But I saw it too

[CrushDance]

its pretty old and i bet he took it ofline. But I saw it too

DAMN I wanted to see the maya stuff :(

[Doom_Bringer]

DAMN I wanted to see the maya stuff :(

don't worry it didn't show much, some models (gun, flame thrower rotating on a grey background). Character stimulated movement on black background without any meshes at all..

It was pretty lame

[Bamihap]

And the game is totally dutch! It's rumored to be the most expensive piece of dutch entertainment ever created.. More expensive than Zwartboek (Paul Verhoevens 17 million euro movie).

Can't wait for the beta test

[Tempy]

- Killzone 1 sold over 2 million copies.

True (Worldwide). This includes Platinum sales. And it does much better in Europe than in the USA. Don't ask me why.

- E3 2005 trailer was made by CG company 'Axis'.

Yeah, they also did the CG in Killzone 1. The Liberation CG however was done by some San Diego company instead.

- Guerrilla was bought by Sony in December 2005 and was then welcomed into the 1st party family.

As a welcoming gift we all got a free PSP!

- Team that worked on the original consisted of ~50individuals. Now there are ~100 employees at Guerrilla (when the PSP team finished Liberation last year they apparantly all joined the PS3 project to help finish it up as well).

I think it's about ~130 now. A handful are still working on that Liberation multiplayer + chapter 5 addon.

- Rumors say that a good amount of people that worked on Outcast 1 & 2 now works at Guerrilla.

Hmm, that's new to me, although we've mostly gotten an influx of artists and I really don't know what people worked on before.

- Killzone PS3 will have episodic content released online after launch. - Phil Harrison kept mentioning last year of the possible inclusion of video recording (of gameplay) as a new function to the PS3 OS. Apparantly they would show it early 2007 with a big upcoming game. Maybe KZ will be the game? Also, Sony have been talking a lot about making youtube like services for the PS3 so this could be really cool. - Phil Harrison has said that some aspects of the game is already past what was seen in the cg trailer. Also, the game will not be shown before he thinks it is ready (so that is his decision).

Phil sure likes to put the pressure on.

- In an interview with a Guerrilla employee last year it was revealed that Killzone PS3 will have much more languages options than normal for games. Statistics has shown that games with good localization usually sells 20-30% more he said.

Dunno about that statistic, but for what it's worth - recently Liberation got a nomination for best Polish localization.

- Killzone PS3 is the most expensive media production ever in the Netherlands with a budget past 21million $ (eclipsing the previous record set by Paul Verhoeven's WW2 movie Zwartboek).

I want some of that money dammit.

- Luke Smith @ 1up.com has heard some talk and believes there's a chance Sony may release a demo early this year to counteract some of the Halo 3 hype. He also heard that Guerrilla have had the game working online for a year.

Since Killzone 1 actually had online, how difficult would you think it be to transfer some of that PS2 code to PS3?

- Naughty Dog just recently mentioned that Guerrilla was one of few companies they were in heavy talks with in relation to tech sharing.

I've heard something about that too! I think I've read it on some gaming forum named GAF.

- Joris De Man, music composer for the games (not employed at Guerrilla anymore but still doing the music) may have revealed in an interview last autumn that in Killzone PS3 there will be a third race. Edit: Or maybe not, look @ post #23.

Did you know that very early on in development the Helghast were supposed to be clones? I remember looking at some concept artwork with clone pods. We ditched that idea.

- At the end of Killzone Liberation, Vekta is seemingly liberated. The orbital defense forces destroyed most of the Helghast fleet at the end of KZ1 and in the PSP game all ground troops were taken care of seemingly. At the end of KZ Liberation the ISA forces mention that they are going to throw everything they have at Helgan itself (the home world of the Helghast). This is also reflected in the E3 2005 trailer as it seems like the ISA forces are attacking what appears to be a Helghast High Command base of some sort.

Timeline: KZ1->KZL->KZ2

[Tempy]

Were there any Helghast women in the game, because I only remember seeing bald men. I mean how do they reproduce?

We had concept artwork for Helghast women (civilian). But that idea was abandoned :-/

I also suggested that the ISA should have female soldiers (remember Vasquez from Aliens?), but nobody ever listens to my ideas.

[Tempy]

Regarding that, Hakha went awol in KZ Liberation. I guess there's a interesting story tidbit to go with that. Also, KZPS3 needs more Luger/Templar sexual tention.

Ever play co-op in Liberation? Hakha is the second player.

[BruceLeeRoy]

OOOH liking this thread.
I also think the first killzone had the chance to really be something special it just seemed like they were pushing the ps2 to far and couldnt compromise.

[Y2Kev]

Reason to be confident: Killzone PSP

Reason to be queasy: Camera angles in trailer and Killzone 1

[methane47]

snip..

Soo you work for Guerilla... do you have any unofficial personal comments for the apparence of the game compared to the Cutscene from E3?

[Shapingo]

Thanks Tempy

This thread is getting better by the minute

[BruceLeeRoy]

Ever play co-op in Liberation? Hakha is the second player.

Tempy I know you cant probably give specifics but give me a wink if we are going to be really impressed by Killzone.