E3 2013: Killzone: Shadow Fall Preview

It's hard not to have a knee-jerk reaction when you see Killzone: Shadow Fall in person. The game is so beautiful that it can be easy to get caughty up in the little details - the volumetric lighting filtering through the leaves of trees in a lush forest, the foliage subtly swaying back and forth in the breeze, and the particle effects spewing forth from your gun barrel give the game that "wow" factor that many new console owners search for. Sure, we've seen the odd PC game hit this level of visual fidelity before (Crysis 3, I'm looking at you,) but by promising Shadow Fall at launch Sony seems to be setting a precedent for visually stunning games on the PlayStation 4.

Processor-pushing graphics have always been a hallmark of the Killzone series, but Shadow Fall shakes things up in a few significant ways when it comes to actually playing the game. Levels are more open than ever before, a bullet point that was demonstrated handily during today's demo. Players will have access to a zipline, which seems to be able to connect to just about any surface. This makes quick traversal easier than ever, and lead to some neat assassination moves when we ziplined on top of enemies. 

With larger environments comes more flexible objectives. Upon entering a level, players will be met with a group of objectives that can, in many cases, be complete in any order. Today's level, for example, had us blowing up AA installations which were placed all around the level. These could be destroyed in any order.

Taking out the enemy's fortifications inevitably lead to a good bit of combat. The majority of the battling was done with an energy-based sniper rifle, a weapon new to the series and one indicative of the more sci-fi approach that Guerilla is taking with Shadow Fall. This game takes place years after the first three Killzone titles, and it shows. Players can charge the rifle for a more powerful shot, but must also take trajectory into account. The more powerful the shot, the farther the blast will arc. When a fully charged shot connected with a Helghast soldier, the poor guy was reduced to jelly.

Your offensive capabilities aren't the only ones that have been improved, though. A helpful bot will accompany you thorughout most of the game, and you can give him commands using the D-Pad. The bot can put up a shield to protect players, an ability which proved helpful when we came face-to-face with a Helghast sniper. Our little robot buddy can also fry enemies with an EMP charge, or ping for foes. Pinging will make any nearby enemies show up as silhouettes onscreen, giving you ample chance for a stealth attack.

Wait, stealth attacks? In Killzone? Sure, there was a brief moment of stealth in the jungle level of Killzone 3, but it was virtually impossible to fail this highly-scripted moment. True stealth gameplay will play a larger part in Shadow Fall; players will be able to get through certain levels entirely through stealthy means if they so desire. In fact, our demo today was largely quiet for the first few minutes thanks to sneaky sniper and knife attacks. When things did blow up, they did so in appropriately bombastic fashion, reassuring us that this is in fact still a Killzone game despite the many leaps forward that the gameplay makes.

We left our Shadow Fall demo highly impressed. Having gone in expecting another highly scripted action romp, we were pleased to find open environments, flexible objectives and optional stealth gameplay awaiting us. Of course if you're just dying for more of that classic Killzone gunplay, that's still there in spades, too. 

We'll have more from both Sony's E3 booth and Killzone: Shadow Fall soon, so stay tuned. Until then, check out the game's E3 trailer below.


Comments (0)

New comments are currently disabled.


Subscribe to me on YouTubeFollow us on Twitter!
Join our Steam group!