Interviews
Guerilla Games’ Steven Ter Heide Talks Killzone 2
June 11, 2008
Killzone 2 won’t ship till early 2009 but that’s no reason not to shed some light on the upcoming PS3 exclusive. The new game follows up on the storyline of the previous Killzone. Only this time you play as Sev, a special ops soldier in the Interplanetary Strategic Alliance battling against your mutated human cousins, the Helghast. This time around the humans are taking the fight to the planet Helghan where hilarity is sure to ensue. We caught up with Steven Ter Heide, senior producer of the game, to talk about riddling aliens wearing gasmasks with lead. Click the jump for the full interview.
Das Gamer: What have you guys been working on since you first debuted the trailer for Killzone 2 at E3 2005?
Steven Ter Heide: When we originally showed the trailer back in 2005 I think everybody saw the level of quality we were going for in terms of the visuals, the quality of the animation, the intensity, and all of that. Right now, we’re trying to make good on that promise. The quality of the visuals today are getting very, very close to what we set out to achieve.
What’s the story behind the sequel? How does it tie in with the original?
It’s two years after the Helghast assault on Vekta. The overarching goal is that we’re taking the fight to the Helghan. The ISA is preemptively striking at their homeworld to take down their emperor, who’s their main aggressor, and by doing that they hope to put an end to their aggression. Everything takes place on Helghan this time around. As they prepare for this invasion, they find out it’s going to be much more difficult than they thought…much more bigger in scale. The Helghast have adapted to their world and there’s a lot more to deal with than they originally anticipated.
What characters will gamers play as and will there be multiple characters like in the original?
There’s a new main character called Sev, who’s a battle-hardened war veteran. We focus on Sev’s story. In the original Killzone, we had different characters that you could play. This game will focus on Sev’s journey through the invasion of Helghan.
What were your main focus points heading into this sequel?
There are a couple of key things that we found to be really important. Since this is a shooter and you’ll be shooting about 80 percent of the time, we wanted to make sure it felt good. We made sure that every little detail down to the weightiness of the weapon and the way it animates feels just right. Also, the fact that every bullet you fire has to have a suitable response–not only from the environment, where you expect destructibility, but also from the enemies. For a shooter, that’s the biggest thing to focus on, that the weapons feel right.
The animations from the Killzone 2 trailer look new for some of the enemy deaths. Can you talk about them?
We wanted to improve the death animations over Killzone, which were rather sloppy. We’ve implemented a system called the hit response system that blends motion-captured animations with physics impulses. So whatever kind of weapon you’re using and the distance and angle you’re shooting from will trigger different kinds of animations. It really makes you feel like every bullet you fire in this world has an impact.
Did your team work on any other specific facets of the game to up the realism?
We want to have a sense of immersion and keep everything in first-person and keep things as cinematic as possible. There’s virtually no HUD and everything you do from buddy assist to lean and peek are in first-person. You feel as though you’re at the center of the action and everything that happens in the game is a result of your actions. All of the features and mechanics are built around that.
The cover system is new to the console version of this game. Where’d that come from?
The cover system we borrowed from Killzone Liberation, which we introduced on PSP. We call it duck and cover. The whole game was in third-person and now we’re doing a first-person perspective view with the same system.
How do other shooters like Halo 3 and Gears of War influence your team?
We’re big game players. We play every game that comes out, not just shooters but we’re also looking at Resident Evil and GTA. We also look at movies, comics and books to find out what works. There was a description in a history book about the First World War where they were describing the German rockets that were coming in. The soldiers called them “screaming meemies” because of the sound that they made. We thought that was a great idea and we implemented that type of sound into the game to have it stick to players.
Can you talk about the Hollywood influence on this shooter?
We built on what we embarked on with the original Killzone. It’s sci-fi but grounded in reality. We wanted to take that a couple of steps further on the PS3 with something we call Hollywood Realism. It feels real but it’s slightly over-the-top. All of the explosions are a little bit bigger and all of the animations are a little more exaggerated, but it’s very much grounded in reality. Even though it’s sci-fi and you’re on another planet, you still recognize things and understand how things work.
The original Killzone received a lot of pre-release hype, but didn’t become the Halo-killer many had hoped. What are you doing this time around to correct that?
Anything from the AI we’re doing, making sure they’re challenging, but feel real as well. That’s always a fine balance. We know we have to improve over what we did with the original Killzone and that’s something we’re working very hard on. Also, the SIXAXIS integration we’ve done keeps with the immersive feel. It allows us to be tactile. You can walk up to a valve, grab it with the shoulder buttons and then rotate the valve with the controller. We didn’t want it to feel like a gimmick or something that was tacked on. It works within the context of the game.
What’s something you’re really excited about with the game at this point in development?
If you look around at the different screens as people play there will be all types of animations going on. We call them happy accidents, when some of the mechanics will just gel and just create this wonderful memorable moment. For instance, with the death animations, if you shoot at an enemy soldier while he’s firing his weapon, he’ll fire that weapon up in the air and the bullets will actually fly out. It’s those kinds of things that I think people will enjoy.
–John Gaudiosi
