Sony is reportedly in the early stages of bringing its first-person shooter series, Killzone, back from the dead.
Guerrilla Games’ Halo killer fell by the wayside after the developer found enormous success with Horizon Zero Dawn back in 2017. It has focused on the Horizon franchise ever since, but Killzone retains a loyal following, and fans often call for it to return.
According to MP1st, Sony may be working on doing just that, with Bulletstorm and Outriders maker People Can Fly drafted in to co-dev. But what is this new Killzone game? Apparently it’s a Killzone remaster or remake, and while we’re not sure which Killzone is getting a fresh coat of paint, the first Killzone game, released on the PlayStation 2 in 2004, is a safe bet.
There’s a lot going on at Guerrilla right now. PlayStation recently rebooted Horizon multiplayer spinoff Hunters Gathering following negative feedback, and, according to MP1st, the studio will move on to Killzone after it’s done doing that. According to Bloomberg, Guerrilla has until December to impress PlayStation bosses with Hunters Gathering’s next milestone, but already some Hunters Gathering staff moved over to another Guerrilla project with a milestone due at the end of this year. Apparently a “tiny team” is working on the next Horizon single-player game, which we’ll call Horizon 3 but will undoubtedly carry a new subtitle, but it’s still years away.
Perhaps a Killzone remaster or remake is a way in for PlayStation to potentially reboot the series with a brand new game at some point down the line. Either way, it’s exciting news for Killzone fans, who haven’t heard a peep out of the franchise ever since PlayStation 4 launch title Killzone Shadow Fall (save a T-shirt in The Last of Us Part 2: Remastered) and a Helldivers 2 crossover.
Speaking in 2024, Guerrilla Games art director Roy Postma declared the studio’s preference for the brighter, more vibrant world of Horizon over the dark and violent world of Killzone it had spent the previous decade working on.
“We were done with it as a team,” Postma said. “As a studio, we needed to refresh the palette. It was, by choice, the opposite of Killzone.”
Postma added that Horizon’s world has a wider appeal than Killzone’s: "I think the themes that this story and the characters represent are relatable for all ages and people, like having a found family of friends and finding your place in the world."
