Horizon: Zero Dawn composer Joris de Man has expressed a tentative interest in the return of Guerrilla’s Killzone shooter series, which was once touted as PlayStation’s answer to Halo, Call Of Duty, and Gears Of War.
If you’ve never played a Killzone game – not surprising, given that they only ever officially made it to PC via Sony’s now-retired PlayStation Now subscription service, and don’t run on the current generation of PlayStation consoles – they’re essentially World War 2 meets Aliens with a thin dusting of satirical intent. They involve a lot of manly shrieking about incoming shells, many legally distinct, lightbulb-eyed stormtroopers, and some sadistically unsafe dropships with rooftop guardrails that wouldn’t stop a toddler falling off a chair. Also, Brian Cox has a lot of fun playing Space Hitler. Look at him go.
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De Man reckons there’s appetite for a Killzone remaster series, but is also of the opinion that people don’t want to play a shooter as “bleak” as Killzone today.
“I know that there have been petitions for it,” he told Videogamer in an interview for the PlayStation: The Concert Tour, which showcases music from first-party games like The Last Of Us. “I think it’s tricky because, I can’t speak for Guerrilla or anything… I don’t know if it will ever happen. I hope it will because I think it is quite an iconic franchise, but also I think it kind of has to take into account kind of the sensitivities and the shift in, I guess, what people want because it is quite bleak in some ways.
“I think a remastered one would be successful,” de Man added. “I don’t know if a new game would be as much. I don’t know if people have moved on from it and want something…. I don’t know, sometimes I get the sense that people want something a bit more casual, a bit more quick.” (I’ve edited Videogamer’s transcript lightly for legibility.)
Quite a lot to unpack, there. Working backwards, I don’t remotely think that the old Killzone FPS house style is too demanding for today’s crowd. I remember Killzone 2 as Call Of Duty with a wonky but serviceable lock-to-cover system, and some enjoyably crapulent architecture. I’d say the problem is more that linear campaign shooters like the classic Killzones don’t get nearly enough traction for the suits at present. You’re either Call Of Duty with a raucous entrenched audience who demand a new single player offering every year, or you’re a live service battle royale and/or hero shooter, like Apex Legends.
And then there’s this point about Killzone fiction being too “bleak”. If de Man genuinely thinks that tastes are trending away from dystopian war fables ridden with fascist iconography, I would gently invite him to 1) read a newspaper or go into a pub or just stick his head through the window of the nearest house, and 2) play some Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and especially, Helldivers 2, which is arguably a Killzone spiritual successor – hence its very first crossover collaboration.
I suspect that, in practice, a new Killzone game that plays up the old Axis aesthetics would find an unironically eager following among players who think that Homelander’s a nice guy once you get to know him. You can imagine the based blowhards of ShiXter dog-piling Guerrilla for portraying the Helghast as the baddies.
Perhaps that’s what de Man is getting at, I don’t know. I’m obviously putting a lot of words in his mouth. Do you have any to add? Or any thoughts on the individual Killzone games? I enjoyed the top-down PSP spin-offs but never played Shadowfall, the most recent incarnation on PS4.
