• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Killzone Universe: Complete Timeline & Backstory

Massa

Member
I think Zen has convinced me that Rico isn't the big douchebag I always thought he was. His points in regards to Garza's death and the Helghan irradiation are very good.

Still, there's not much you can say about how he shot Visari. The ISA could of gotten a lot of information out of him, but Rico was too hot tempered.

I don't know. When the US got to Osama Bin Laden they killed him. Rico would have been a hero in modern day. ;)
 
1) Earth still exists.

2) Rico is black.

Rico (Ricardo Velasquez) is also Latin.

I'm working my way through the timeline again, and loving it as I did last time. One question at the moment - during the "Tensions/2198" section it mentions that the UCA are building vehicles capable of smashing the ISA fleets, but I don't recall it saying that the ISA weren't still under the control of the UCA/UCN at this point.

Did I miss a development somewhere?

No but remember, as people have pointed out in the thread, the ISA was made up of colonists from those planets. If they made a decision to raze a planet and the ISA disagreed with the reasoning (bka "why are you trying to destroy my home?!?!") then the UCN would have to Deal with the ISA first.
 
Goes to show how much astronomy I know, Alpha Centauri is an actual system. In fact, it is the closest system to ours at a distance of 4.37 light years away and used in many science fiction novels/movies/games apparently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri#Use_in_modern_fiction

So in response to posts like this,

Had a glance at the OP, timeline seems too compressed. Seems like it took under 80 years to go from new colony on uninhabited planet to sprawling industrial centers, war fleet manufacturing and so on. Just how many people are supposed to be living in these places anyawy? Is everybody having 15 child families or did the extremely difficult/slow interstellar journeys become cheap and easy to pull fresh waves of migrants from Earth? Nearlight spacecraft take near unfathomable energies to accelerate. It's not like Earthers can book a pleasure cruise to Alpha Centauri, right? I didn't see any mentions of magical FTL drives anywhere. Did they get invented but not mentioned in the timeline?

Not realistic enough. Sharp knees. Would not bang. 0/10
4.37 years isn't that bad (assuming they have near light speed travel), especially for all the promise a new world has. It wouldn't be unreasonable for a massive amount of people to be living on Vekta and Helghan early on.
 

sunnz

Member
I don't think I have ever been so fascinated with a games back-story/timeline as much, really is interesting and awesome to read.

Hope they take full advantage of it.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Wait, whoah?
This has quite a lot of worldbuilding?
Bookmarking this for later, since i reckon i'm going to play KZ on PS4 even though the doesn't look particularly interesting, only solid.
But if the worldbuilding and story are good... well, not many games have that. Would be a rare treasure.
 
Wait, whoah?
This has quite a lot of worldbuilding?
Bookmarking this for later, since i reckon i'm going to play KZ on PS4 even though the doesn't look particularly interesting, only solid.
But if the worldbuilding and story are good... well, not many games have that. Would be a rare treasure.

Killzone's lore is really interesting in my opinion. Problem is the games only show you slices of it but never delve on the bigger picture because they have always gone for the perspective of just another squad in a larger war. I really like that perspective but it has the side reaction of making people think there isn't anything more.

Personally I would love to see say a 10 minute or so introduction for Shadow Fall that briefly covers the timeframe from our current present day to the games present day and/or a longer video in the menus you can watch if you want. Because lets face it, most gamers don't want to read something just to understand the lore.
 

Woorloog

Banned
Killzone's lore is really interesting in my opinion. Problem is the games only show you slices of it but never delve on the bigger picture because they have always gone for the perspective of just another squad in a larger war. I really like that perspective but it has the side reaction of making people think there isn't anything more.

Personally I would love to see say a 10 minute or so introduction for Shadow Fall that briefly covers the timeframe from our current present day to the games present day and/or a longer video in the menus you can watch if you want. Because lets face it, most gamers don't want to read something just to understand the lore.

Halo has kinda the same problem. Rich world, but you won't see that in the games (outside delving a bit deeper, some Halos have Terminals which tell a bit more about the world).
Halo 2 had most exposition... and it got kind of negative reception so we got very watered down story in Halo 3.

Me, i find (good, well told) story and worldbuilding important in games. If you don't have that, i don't care (and it needs to be.. different as well, Dragon Age for example sucks when it comes to worldbuilding).
A game needs more than good gameplay, it needs a soul, and that soul comes from worldbuilding and story.

EDIT video telling the backround would be great, especially for newcomers like me.
 
Goes to show how much astronomy I know, Alpha Centauri is an actual system. In fact, it is the closest system to ours at a distance of 4.37 light years away and used in many science fiction novels/movies/games apparently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Centauri#Use_in_modern_fiction

So in response to posts like this,

4.37 years isn't that bad (assuming they have near light speed travel), especially for all the promise a new world has. It wouldn't be unreasonable for a massive amount of people to be living on Vekta and Helghan early on.

this is very cool... does Earth still have people inhabiting it or is it completely abandoned
 
sorry for the second post but since GG is diving into a more core helghan mythos in SF do you guys think we might see helghan ruins in Vekta from the old helghan colonies
 

i-Lo

Member
An amazing mythos like this only reinforces the notion of what a poor job GG has done in terms of selecting what story to tell and how.

I can see this franchise having the potential to become a WRPG with a more encompassing tale.
 
An amazing mythos like this only reinforces the notion of what a poor job GG has done in terms of selecting what story to tell and how.

I can see this franchise having the potential to become a WRPG with a more encompassing tale.

it doesn't need to be a WRPG , although adding rpg elements to what it currently is would be cool. But even as the cover based fps it is now there's so much potential for great story. they need to take advantage of the lore.
 
I really like the lore of this series, I could totally see them making a first person mass effect kind of game. Maybe play as different characters through different parts of the time line, how bad ass would it be to talk to Sev before any of this goes down and totally have him just be some nobody.

I think I'm getting ahead of myself again lol.
 

Gorillaz

Member
sorry for the second post but since GG is diving into a more core helghan mythos in SF do you guys think we might see helghan ruins in Vekta from the old helghan colonies
Idk anymore I mean they have to show they can actually make a story first. They were kind of on the right track with killzone 2 but ended up backing themselves in a corner killing off you know who
 
this intrigues me especially two things from this in the ExtraSolar Colonization Plan:
One being that they have already created a freezing device which extends the humans life as they sleep

Another being the lack of energy resources for Earth hence the Colonization Plan...


He He He! my theory is becoming more and more likely ;)

Visari is ALive and is a Traitor who is working for Earth in order to gain Helghan as a pure energy planet for Earth's means... the twist it makes sense

Also
some small hope for Radec to not really be dead but that the one you faced who killed himself was really a double (like Vasari) :( please... he could be the leader of the black hand
 
Wow reading this just now. Awesome job OP.

I honestly didn't know there was so much lore in the KZ universe!

Why the hell are GG not implementing this stuff better in their games?!

Also I don't quite understand why all the hate for earth? Was the ISA/UCN still based there? I thought they had their own colonies too?
 
D

Deleted member 80556

Unconfirmed Member
I also wish that
Radec were alive. But I think that would be too much deus ex machina, or not as logical as Visari's double
.
 
I still wish they would give us one game as the Helghast.

The ISA are the real villains of the series if you read this timeline.
 

TheCloser

Banned
Seriously, if they had made shadow fall and other killzone games a first person rpg, they would sell more than the mass effect franchise. The story of the killzone universe is far more interesting.
 
I absolutely love this thread. People debating who the good guys are, whether there was proper justification for various wars, and whether the Helgan have certain rights to enforce galactic tariffs. Just wonderful stuff. A real treat compared to all the hate-filled console war threads.

I'll be back here to read more of people's posts for sure.
 
I love how this entire thing is just a giant reminder that the reason all the shit in KZ going down is because Earth's rich/powerful elite got butthurt over the Helghast exercising their rights as property owners.

Also, seriously, attributing KZ to being a parallel to WW1 and WW2 is a bit oversimplifying things. I don't recall WW1 starting because Germany taxing people to travel through their lands.
 

dino1980

Member
I love how this entire thing is just a giant reminder that the reason all the shit in KZ going down is because Earth's rich/powerful elite got butthurt over the Helghast exercising their rights as property owners.

Also, seriously, attributing KZ to being a parallel to WW1 and WW2 is a bit oversimplifying things. I don't recall WW1 starting because Germany taxing people to travel through their lands.

Well its all about power and Helghast got a little to powerfull for their own good.
 

PropheV

Neo Member
It's such a shame to see all this potential being wasted. Actually, it makes me a bit annoyed. You have this rich, incredible and awesome history to toy around with and let the playerbase explore, yet you do NOTHING with it?

Also, FUCK Rico. Such a lame dudebro character who single handedly destroyed the ending of KZ2.

And like others have mentioned, i wouldn't mind a story driven take on the killzone universe where you get to experience the rise of Radec.
 
Allegory isn't exact nobody was executed during McCarthyism yet The Crucible still had people being hanged. You wanna talk about greed? What about the Helghan Corporation that was already fabulously wealthy from the deal they already had in place? They didn't want to be rich, they wanted everything.
 
I wonder if Guerilla will ever utilize the deep history and mythos they made up for this series. I only fully completed KZ 2 but from what I saw of KZ 3 it just kind of picks up and continues the story of KZ 2 and the new KZ takes place 30 years later and tells a brand new story.
 
Actually to add onto this, and someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the intro scene to Killzone 3 depict the moment right before they dropped the nuke on their own city? And wasn't the nuke stolen from the ISA in Killzone 1 (since the Helghasts couldn't develop nuclear weapons yet). And in the scene Radec kills the Helghast soldier who happened to be there so there would be no witnesses of this event?

So they were nuking their own city and blaming it on the ISA. Those bastards!

Yeah, that's exactly what happens - I think they explain that in KZ2 as well, that Visari does it to blame on the Vektan force and rally his troops into stopping the invasion.

Anyway, a very interesting topic and it makes me wish all the more the the plot and storytelling in the games themselves was better. I'll give it a proper read when I'm not on my phone though.
 
fantastic!! thanks for uploading this information. this was a really good read. i have played all the console Killzone titles and had fun but never knew much about the story. now that i have read the back-story and see how rich it is, im stoked to play shadow fall to see how deep the story runs and to see how the two factions play out. im siding somewhat more with the helghast. i do have a question though, what has happened to earth through this whole conflict, is earth still receiving supplies from the colonies or is it being left to die?
 

nib95

Banned
If they don't go in to the back story, narrative and characters more in this next Killzone, I might have to agree that it's time to do something different. Not because I actually want that to happen but in anger and bitterness at Guerilla Games lol.
 
Cool thread! The Killzone back story is a really good read which makes the lackluster stories in the games all that much more disappointing. Hopefully Shadow Fall's will better.
 
D

Deleted member 80556

Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, ignoring the backstory for 5 damned games (supposing Mercenary also ignores it) pretty much means they have no idea what they're doing story wise.

Unless the story of the next game is that good, that is!
 

nib95

Banned
interesting, so we just play the boring part?

Pretty much lol.

Actual story | Some epic intergalactic political rift that spreads across different groups, races and planets. Full of ethical grey areas where the good and bad is hard to tell apart from the different sides, with so many different factors at play.

Game story | Hoorah! Lets get some!
 

Number45

Member
Yeah, ignoring the backstory for 5 damned games (supposing Mercenary also ignores it) pretty much means they have no idea what they're doing story wise.

Unless the story of the next game is that good, that is!
Do we know who created the back story? Did they get someone in for it, or was it one of the studio (or a group of them)? Has anyone ever asked them (and got a response) as to why they don't do more with it?

Genuinely curious, because it seems that everyone that makes the effort to dig into the lore really enjoys it. Not doing something with it seems like a missed opportunity - maybe they can get someone in that can work it well narratively into the games.
 

nib95

Banned
One of my dream franchises would be a heavily narrative, character development and exploration based Killzone FPS stroke pseudo RPG. Like a cross between Killzone 2, Mass Effect and Deus Ex.

I'm glad Mercenaries is at least offering upgrade options for weapons and so forth, that in itself is a step in the right direction, as in Killzone Shadow Fall's more open ended and dynamic mission approach.
 
Imagine how awesome KZ would have been if we were actually playing the space battles. Big open world space battle against the helghast.

C'mon GG, you need to get the story in game!
 

Eppy Thatcher

God's had his chance.
Didn't they hire an actual writer for the story portion of ShadowFall? ... i'm really hoping they have some seriously good storytelling layered into the game this go around as it could be something super special. I want to really identify and "know" that female commando at the end of the game.
 

Tesshin

Neo Member
Didn't they hire an actual writer for the story portion of ShadowFall? ... i'm really hoping they have some seriously good storytelling layered into the game this go around as it could be something super special. I want to really identify and "know" that female commando at the end of the game.

I echo your sentiment. Pun intended. ;)
 

Dart

Member
So you guys wanted the Nazi's to win WW2? cuz this entire series is allegory for WW1 and 2. Even down to the Nazi/Hig Super weapon (Irradiated petrucite/Nuclear Fission) developed too late to save them.

It's a fictional story, let the bad guys win for once.

Hail Helghast!
 
Top Bottom