As 2012 draws to a close, we look back at an eventful year for Guerrilla and the Killzone series. In February we released Killzone 3 Multiplayer, a standalone version of Killzone 3’s online mode and DLC maps, on the PlayStation Store. In August we announced a new handheld title for PlayStation Vita called Killzone: Mercenary, which sees its protagonist fight on both sides of the ISA-Helghast conflict. And in October we simultaneously released Killzone Trilogy, a bundle containing all three first-person shooters in the Killzone series, and Killzone HD, a high-definition remaster of our original Killzone game.

In addition to these planned events, there were also a few surprises along the way. In early November we were wowed by a 15-minute fan-made live action film called Killzone Intercept, which even blew our own live action trailer for Killzone: Mercenary out of the water.

Director Brian Curtin had been in touch with Guerrilla about his ambitious plans for a short Killzone movie, but we were still unprepared for the level of awesomeness he’d bring to the project. The end result is a testament to the sheer creativity of our fans, and we feel very blessed to have such dedicated followers.

But the biggest highlight of the year was being able to welcome SCE Cambridge Studio into our fold. We’ve officially become a multi-studio company! Guerrilla Cambridge — as our new sister studio is known — is working hard to ensure that Killzone: Mercenary will be the ultimate handheld first-person shooter experience when it launches for PlayStation Vita in 2013.

The team is intimately familiar with handheld game development, having previously worked on titles such as LittleBigPlanet for PSP, and they’ve done a phenomenal job adapting the Killzone 3 engine to the PS Vita platform.

2013 is gearing up to be another big year for Guerrilla – quite possibly the biggest since we released the original Killzone way back in 2004. We’ll have more details for you at a future date, but until then we hope you share a wonderful holiday with your loved ones, and we’ll see you in 2013.

Since its release on the Internet last week, Killzone Intercept has been a small sensation among Killzone fans and novices alike. At the time of writing, the fan film has amassed nearly 170,000 views – and it’s not showing signs of slowing down. We got in touch with director (and longtime Killzone fan) Brian Curtin to find out how Killzone Intercept came together.

PlayStation.Blog: Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get started making fan films?
Brian Curtin, Director of Killzone Intercept: I consider myself an Art Director/Graphic Designer by day and Independent Filmmaker by night. I’ve always been interested in the arts. Early on in high school it was illustration and animation. Moving on to college I studied Graphic Design, but I was always making stupid little videos with friends in the dorm rooms and around school. I graduated with a Graphic Design focus, but I kept making videos on the side. They’re a great creative outlet. Plus, they kept getting better due to my growing experience and improvements in technology. The first video we uploaded to YouTube was Concrete Hustle, a humorous lightsaber duel. We technically tried to make it serious, but I think that’s what makes it funny. It took a year before it really started becoming popular. That gave us motivation to tackle bigger projects that inspired us, like the Half-Life based Beyond Black Mesa and after that, Killzone Intercept.

PSB: When did you decide you wanted to create a Killzone fan film?
BC: I’m a sucker for futuristic first-person shooters that take place in distressed environments where you battle glowing-eyed enemies. So it’s not a surprise that I would want to attempt a Killzone film. I played Killzone years ago and much like the original Half-Life, it’s one of those games you get lost in. When Killzone 2 and 3 came out, they blew my mind with their fun gameplay and, most of all, their beautiful graphics. The character and environment designs are incredible. Instantly, I started to want to see it in real life. That was the biggest motivation and the biggest challenge at the same time. How do you bring to life characters and a world that is so far out there with limited resources? Nevertheless, we knew we had to try.

PSB: What excited you the most about doing a project based on the Killzone universe?

“It’s crazy to see a squad of glowing eyes running at you.”

BC: I love the Helghast. They’re menacing, mean, and at the same time awesome-looking. It was really exciting to be able to see them and the ISA battling on set. Even though the muzzle flashes and special effects were missing during the shots, it’s still crazy to see a squad of glowing eyes running at you from behind a wall of smoke. Never gets old!

PSB: Did you communicate your plans to Guerrilla? How was the reaction?
BC: Luckily we were able to get in contact with the developers at Guerrilla. They were super supportive for the ideas we had. It’s not often you get a response from the creators of a game who care about your crazy project. They were gracious enough to let us use the Killzone soundtracks, sound effects, and a few 3D elements. Those make up a small part of a film, but they’re very crucial for accuracy. Plus, it was fun to get feedback from them during the process. I’m sure they cringed at some points, but ultimately they enjoyed seeing a fan’s interpretation.

PSB: How many people were involved with the project? Was it the same crew that worked on Beyond Black Mesa?
BC: I believe we had a crew of 15 – 20, that’s counting a few others on the post-production side. Not very big for what we were attempting, but a lot bigger than I’m used to. It was nice to have everything covered, not to mention covered by very talented people. They probably handled the workload of 50-75 people and I’m not talking about myself, they are just that good! On our past film Beyond Black Mesa, it was literally four of us at a time – if you weren’t in the shot, you were probably lighting three smoke grenades and then grabbing the camera to shoot. The core Infectious Designer crew who worked on BBM and Concrete Hustle were all a part of this film. Ultimately, they are the guys behind the camera or behind the masks that have helped make all our films possible.

PSB: How long did the project take to complete? How much of that was pre-production, and how much was post-production?
BC: Answering this question always makes me depressed, because the ratio is so bad. Two years for 14 minutes. I have to remind myself that I do all of this between my full time job and my fiancée is patient enough to stay with a workaholic. The first year was mostly pre-production – writing the script, finding locations, figuring out how we were going to make Helghast and ISA costumes and props. The second year was eight very long days of shooting and the rest was editing and post-production. Phew, I’m tired just thinking about it.

“Two years for 14 minutes.”

PSB: Assuming you didn’t really visit Helghan to film Killzone Intercept, can you tell us about the location where it was filmed?
BC: Surprisingly, Birmingham Alabama has a good look when you’re trying to reproduce Helghan. Since steel production was huge back in the day here, it has left us some really great post-apocalyptic factories. We shot half of the film at two factories and the rest in an active rock quarry. When you add a few futuristic elements, they both look like they’re on a foreign planet.

PSB: The story unfolds very much like an actual Killzone mission, but the flashback at the beginning is unique to Killzone Intercept. Was that a deliberate decision?
BC: The flashback at the beginning with the mother and son was an element I personally wanted to include. I knew early on that some people would really appreciate it and others would find it unnecessary, but ultimately I felt the film needed it. There were a few things I wanted it to do. First of all, I wanted to infuse the concept we often overlook, that war is horrible and no one really wins. I find that soldiers fight for one reason, to keep the ones they love safe, regardless of the many actual reasons or underlying motives of the war they’re in. Second, I wanted it to give our William character a little more depth and show you what he’s fighting for. Third, I really wanted to show a glimpse of Vekta, and show the viewer William’s home town.

It was challenging to dive into serious matters so early on, but I wanted to set a theme that would leave the viewer with some type of take away message at the end. I love non-stop action, but it would have been a really shallow video if it just opened up with four guys riding into a factory shooting, blowing stuff up and then “the end.”

PSB: Which elements from the Killzone universe did you insist on having in the film? Were there any you had to leave out due to time or budgetary constraints?
BC: There are a lot of things I insisted on having in the film. The ISA had to have their glowing blue tech lights. They ended up not being as bright as we wanted in camera, so it was painful, but we amplified them in post. We had to have a Capture Trooper, visually he’s my favorite character. We were lucky enough to find Anthony Kitchens, who was talented and gracious enough to tackle it. He really brought the trooper to life. I did want to have a medic Helghast and a Hazmat Helghast, but those were extremely hard to produce, so they didn’t make it. Lastly, I wanted to shoot a few long shots using a Helicam – it’s basically a miniature helicopter with a RED Epic hanging underneath and it can pretty much fly anywhere – but we just didn’t have the resources. Maybe next time.

“Of all our films, it’s had the most positive feedback.”

PSB: What was the biggest challenge in creating Killzone Intercept?
BC: I know why there aren’t very many live action Killzone films! Everything about it is challenging to create. The characters and environments are so unique; it’s hard to bring them into the real world.

PSB: How do you feel about the response from the fans so far?
BC: I’m very pleased with the response, it seems the majority really appreciates it. I think I can say out of all our films, it’s had the most positive feedback. I’ve learned that putting anything out on the web is going to be loved and hated, but it still baffles me, there are always a few people who put a lot of time to inform me that it’s garbage and watching it was a complete waste of their time….yeah, it’s that guy. I apologize for interrupting troll time. :)

We interrupt your regular scheduled blog content with a gentle reminder from Helghast Autarch Scolar Visari:

You heard the man! The Killzone Trilogy bundle is now available in stores for $39.99; Killzone HD is also separately available from the PlayStation Store for $14.99. The Double XP Weekend starts on Friday, October 26th at 9:30pm Pacific, so make sure you mark it on your calendar. You wouldn’t want to upset the Autarch…

Victor Zuylen: Last week you explained how you retrieved the code and assets for the original Killzone. What happened once you handed them over to the conversion team?
Michiel van der Leeuw, Technical Director: That’s where the real fun began! There were corruptions and missing bits in the exported data, which caused all kinds of weird artifacts like polygons shooting through the game world. For the conversion team, the first order of business was to go in and fix all that.

Frank Compagner, Senior Programmer: Our old exporters no longer functioned, so the conversion team rather ingeniously re-used portions of the Killzone 3 pipeline with some manual hacks to convert the data back to Killzone 1 format.

ML: Yes, they really went above and beyond the call of duty. The team even solved a few bugs we hadn’t discovered when the original Killzone went to gold master.

VZ: Can you give an example?
ML: The Offices level from chapter 2 is a good example. In the original, there were a couple of pillars that the player could just walk right through. The bug slipped by us due to a very, very late change to the content.

FC: I remember how [Killzone 3 producer] Seb Downie really despaired over that one. He was our QA Manager back then, and the poor fellow discovered the bug right after Killzone had gone to gold master, so there wasn’t any time left to fix it.

ML: The Killzone HD conversion team solved the problem by painstakingly recreating the physics mesh and merging it back into the game. When I showed the fixed version to Seb the other day his response was, “Now I can die with honor.”

VZ: Aside from fixed bugs, what else has been improved for the HD version?
FC: Where possible, the Killzone assets we retrieved have been resampled or recreated at a higher resolution. Textures, for instance, were originally designed at twice the required size and then downscaled to fit into PlayStation 2 memory. For PlayStation 3 that’s no longer a concern, so the game uses the full-sized textures. Similarly, the menus and HUD-elements have all been upscaled and reworked to look good in 720p.

ML: A lot of the improvements to the game have been facilitated by switching to the more powerful PlayStation 3 hardware. The frame rate is smoother, the shaders are of a better quality, the LOD settings have been tweaked to nearly always show the highest level of detail, and the engine now applies MSAA filtering – which, by the way, looks really sharp on a lower-polygon title like Killzone.

FC: The conversion team also introduced trophy support and an updated control scheme, to bring the game in line with modern PlayStation 3 shooters. I believe [Killzone 2 and 3 game director] Mathijs de Jonge helped out with the controls?

ML: Yes, he did. The difference between PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 controller sensitivity meant that the controls required tweaking anyway, so Mathijs used the opportunity to change them to something more familiar to players of Killzone 2 and 3.

VZ: Does that mean there is now a ‘jump’ button in Killzone HD?
FC: No, something like that would require extensive changes to the levels, to prevent players from climbing out of the geometry.
ML: More importantly, it would run counter to what we were trying to do with Killzone. The omission of the ‘jump’ button was a very deliberate design decision, almost like a statement against other shooters of the time. We wanted players to have a visceral, realistic experience, and that meant preventing them from traversing our game by bunny-hopping or rocket-jumping. Even when we re-introduced jumps for the obstacle-heavy terrains in Killzone 2, they were ‘weighty’ jumps – not perfect parabolic arcs, but the sort of short leaps a heavily packed soldier would make.

FC: It’s interesting to see how many of the features and design decisions that shaped the sequels – things like weightiness, hit response systems, brutal melee moves, and elaborate reload animations – all evolved from that early desire for visceral realism. Guerrilla always tried its best not to make players feel like disembodied guns floating through a level.

VZ: What do you hope players will get out of Killzone HD?
FC: Killzone HD will obviously have nostalgic value for fans who’ve played it on PlayStation 2, but I was pleasantly surprised to see how well most of it holds up after eight years. If you liked Killzone 2 or 3, or even if you’re just interested in the Killzone universe, Killzone HD will be a lot of fun.

ML: It’s a chance to see where it all began and play a unique entry in the Killzone trilogy. Killzone HD doesn’t just differ from its successors because the game takes place on Vekta instead of Helghan, it also has a very different approach to the way it presents its characters. You can play as Templar, Luger, Rico or Hakha, and use different abilities, weapons and tactics depending on who you choose. It’s the only Killzone title to do so, and I think players will enjoy it a lot.

VZ: Thanks for the interview, guys.
FC: Our pleasure!

Killzone HD will be released as part of the Killzone Trilogy bundle on October 24th. A standalone version will hit the PlayStation Store on the same date for $14.99. Stay tuned to Killzone.com and PlayStation.Blog for more Killzone Trilogy and Killzone HD news!

Victor Zuylen: What prompted the HD remaster of Killzone?

Michiel van der Leeuw, Technical Director, Guerrilla: It was an idea whose time had come. Internally we had talked about bringing Killzone to PlayStation 3 before – Killzone fans frequently asked us about it, and we knew from other developers that such projects could be a lot of fun.

VZ: How many of the original team were involved?

ML: A number of developers who worked on the original Killzone for PlayStation 2 helped get this project off the ground, including Guerrilla’s main producer, Angie Smets, who first started producing on Killzone; producer Sebastian ‘MotherH’ Downie, who served as a QA Manager and community liaison back then; art director Jan-Bart van Beek, who was the Lead Artist on Killzone; myself, as the lead coder of the original game.

Frank Compagner, Senior Programmer, Guerrilla: I mainly worked on another Guerrilla title called ShellShock: Nam ’67 at the time.

VZ: Frank, how did you get involved with Killzone HD?

FC: I was asked to dig up the source code and the original assets for the game – things like models, textures and sounds. Guerrilla used a completely different versioning system in 2004, so we knew direct retrieval of the assets was going to be tricky. By comparison, obtaining the source code was slightly easier, because we found a copy in our current CVS.

ML: Frank performed an amazing feat of software archeology.

VZ: Software archeology?

ML: It’s a programming term. The biggest challenge we faced with regard to obtaining the assets was that Guerrilla’s whole way of working was different back then. The assets had been backed up to tape at one point, but that was almost eight years and two tape robots ago. So we needed an archeologist, someone to dig into the depths of our backup archives and unearth whatever they could.

FC: It was quite an interesting challenge. The first issue we ran into was that we no longer had a machine to read most of the tapes. And the second issue was that the tapes were stored, uh, offsite…

ML: Go ahead, you can say it.

FC: By which I mean, in a shoebox in the cellar of one of our IT support staff members, without a list of contents of any kind.

VZ: In a shoebox?

FC: Like I said, we were young and we used to do things differently back in those days.

VZ: So how did you know which tapes to use?

ML: We eventually found a document with tape numbers and backup dates that seemed to match the ones in the shoebox.

FC: Yeah, I spent days poring over the list to get an idea of the data contained on the tapes, and to see whether any of the tapes might possibly contain Killzone 1 assets. In the end I narrowed it down to three or four likely candidate tapes that I asked our IT support staff to procure for me.

ML: Luckily, two of the tapes turned out to be from a previous tape robot that was still in working order, so IT support was able to transfer the contents for us.

VZ: You mentioned that you found the source code separately?

FC: Yes, someone had remembered to store a copy in our current CVS. The challenge there was getting the source code to compile. Owing to the different standards and naming conventions we followed back in those days, that was quite a puzzle in and of itself.

ML: We really had to rack our brains to remember why things were set up the way they were.

VZ: Can you give us an example?

F: A simple example would be the code and header files pertaining to Rico Velasquez; most of them referred to him by a different name, because he started out as an Asian character during development and we never got around to changing it to Rico in the source code.

ML: I had completely forgotten about that.

FC: Me too. At first I wondered why I could only find code for three of the four main characters.

VZ: What happened once you got the code to compile?

FC: From there the team that did the actual conversion took over, working off of the PC development build of Killzone to produce a version that would run well and look good on PlayStation 3.

VZ: What do you think of the end result?

ML: I think the conversion team did a terrific job. The original Killzone was a product of Guerrilla’s high ambitions and youthful enthusiasm, but at the time we didn’t quite have the experience to pack all of those ambitions into the space provided by the PlayStation 2 platform. The conversion team has gone in and made sure everything fits and runs smoothly this time, fully realizing Guerrilla’s original vision for the game. This is Killzone as it was meant to be played.

VZ: Thanks for your time, guys.

FC: Our pleasure!

Join us next week for the second part of the Killzone HD (Re-)Developer Interview, in which Michiel van der Leeuw and Frank Companger talk about the enhancements made to Killzone HD.

Announced last week, the Killzone Trilogy box set combines Killzone 2 and Killzone 3 with a high-definition PS3 remaster of the original Killzone. Today we take a closer look at Killzone HD, and the challenging new trophy set that comes with it.

Originally released for PlayStation 2 in 2004, Killzone tells the story of Jan Templar, an ISA Captain whose home planet comes under attack from a Helghast invasion army. Together with a hot-headed sergeant named Rico, a deadly Shadow Marshal known as Luger, and the half-human, half-Helghast spy Hakha, Templar must attempt to reactivate the Orbital Defense Platform and drive the invading forces from his planet Vekta.

This rip-roaring introduction to the Killzone universe has been remastered in HD for inclusion with the Killzone Trilogy bundle. Featuring a single-player campaign with four playable characters and an offline multiplayer mode against AI opponents, Killzone HD has received a thorough audiovisual overhaul: the game boasts 720p graphics at a steady 30fps, with MSAA filtering, sharper textures and higher quality sound effects. But don’t take our word for it – check out these crisp HD screenshots:

In addition to these improvements, Killzone HD has been enhanced with a full set of trophies. The trophy list is detailed below (beware of spoilers if you’ve never played the original Killzone).

Killzone HD will be released as part of the Killzone Trilogy bundle on October 23rd. A standalone version will hit PlayStation Store on the same day for $14.99. Stay tuned to Killzone.com for more Killzone Trilogy and Killzone HD news, including a giveaway promo and a Double XP Weekend!

March 1 UPDATE: The team has resolved the issue with the XP bonus and 3 free unlock points, so anyone who purchases the Killzone 3 multiplayer will now have access to this added content. And rest assured, for those who purchased the multiplayer already we will be awarding the content very soon via XMB message with voucher code where the items can be unlocked. We appreciate everyone’s patience during this fix and as a reminder we look forward to seeing you all out on the battlefield for the Double XP weekend (going from 8:00am PT on 3/2 through 2:00am PT 3/5)

Feb 28 UPDATE: We mentioned previously that for all you fans who purchase the Killzone 3 Multiplayer will receive a 24-hour double XP bonus & 3 free unlock points. Unfortunately, we’ve encountered a minor technical issue that will prevent the bonuses from being redeemed at this time. Rest assured however that the team is working quickly to resolve the issue and will deliver the bonuses to any customers that purchase the Killzone 3 Multiplayer very soon. We’ll have more details on progress very soon.

To celebrate Killzone 3’s first anniversary, we’re releasing a standalone version of the game’s online component on PlayStation Store today. Dubbed “Killzone 3 Multiplayer,” it includes the Guerrilla Warfare, Warzone, and Operations game modes, as well as the original Killzone 3 maps and all Killzone 3 DLC maps. Best of all, it’s free to try – you can play any of the maps and modes until you reach the rank of Sergeant I.

If you want to keep playing, attain higher ranks, and earn any of Killzone 3 Multiplayer’s four exclusive new Trophies, you can unlock the full version for only $15. Doing so will net you a 24-hour double XP bonus, three free unlock points, the ability to set up clans and custom games, and access to the Botzone mode to help hone your combat skills.

For those who already own Killzone 3 (or decide to purchase the full version of Killzone 3 Multiplayer), we have another anniversary treat: this weekend will be Double XP Weekend! Starting on Friday, March 2 at 8:00am Pacific time, and lasting until Monday, March 5 at 2:00am Pacific time, all XP earned in online Killzone 3 matches will be doubled. The trial version of Killzone 3 Multiplayer is excluded from the Double XP Weekend, of course – we wouldn’t want you to hit that Sergeant I rank too quickly!

And as a reminder, if you enjoy playing this trial multiplayer demo and also want to experience the game’s exciting single-player campaign, you can always purchase the full version of Killzone 3 on Blu-ray at retailers.

Earlier this week we released the third DLC pack for Killzone 3, “From The Ashes,” as well as a DLC bundle containing all three DLC packs. Of course there’s only one way to celebrate this momentous occasion — organize a Triple XP Weekend!

You read that right – from Friday, June 24 at 9:00AM Pacific Time, until Monday, June 27 at 9:00AM, all XP earned in Killzone 3’s multiplayer matches will be tripled. So whether you’re exploring new DLC maps or just re-acquainting yourself with the stock maps, you’ll rank up faster than ever!

Guerrilla’s proposal for a Move-based peripheral was sent to SCE Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida and the Sony Product Design group, who circulated it among other studios for input. The proposal met with very enthusiastic reactions. “When we saw the foam-board-and-duct-tape mockup, we were like ‘Cool, let’s make that!’” Sony Product Design Manager Ennin Huang recalls.

It wasn’t long before Guerrilla was contacted by developers from other shooters like SOCOM 4, Time Crisis: Razing Storm and Dead Space: Extraction. Zipper Interactive Game Director Seth Luisi, who’d already been looking into a PlayStation Move-based control scheme for SOCOM 4, took a particular interest in the project. “Seth strongly felt that a gun peripheral could bring an additional level of immersion and realism to the table,” Guerrilla Game Director Mathijs de Jonge says. “Like Killzone 3, SOCOM 4 was still in its early stages, so the timing made sense for him as well.”

With each iteration, the design evolved away from the StA-11.

The Zipper team suggested several highly useful additions to the gun peripheral design. “For instance, they wanted players to be able to reload without taking their hands off the navigation controller,” Mathijs explains. “This could be solved by adding pump-action mechanism to the fore grip. Also, they noted that many tactical shooters, including SOCOM 4, featured weapons with multiple modes of fire, which would require the inclusion of a fire selector switch.”

With basic shape and functionality hammered out, the gun peripheral entered the prototyping phase. “Every six weeks, a new plastic gun peripheral would arrive from China for us and the team at Zipper to comment on,” Guerrilla Lead Concept Designer (and resident weapons expert) Roy Postma says. “And with each iteration, you could see the design come into its own more. The style of the weapon became more neutral, less Killzone-specific.”

Enhancements included a more ergonomic angle for the fore grip, an adjustable and collapsible stock instead of the foldable one, and overall weight reductions to facilitate prolonged play. “Sadly, some features fell by the wayside during this process,” Roy says. “We originally wanted to have an ammo counter display above the stock, but it just proved too costly.”

The color of the weapon changed too, evolving from the gunmetal grays of the original design, to a jet black version, to the more neutral grays of the final product. “From a legal and marketing perspective we had to impose some constraints,” Ennin says. “The black version looked menacing, but would have violated most countries’ gun laws.” Even the first grey prototypes proved difficult to get through customs, as Mathijs found after a demonstration at a conference.

Meanwhile, the teams at Guerrilla and Zipper experimented with Move control systems for their respective games, figuring out sensible settings for dead zone, aim assistance and controller sensitivity. “Initially we wanted to map a lot of in-game actions to player gestures as well,” Mathijs says, “but that turned out to interfere with player aim too much. So we restricted it to short, simple movements like thrusting the gun peripheral to perform a melee.”

The final production prototype in all its glory.

The gun peripheral went into full production in the run-up to Killzone 3’s launch. Early hands-on reports of the device – now dubbed the PlayStation Move sharp shooter – were almost unanimously positive, with many reporters expressing pleasant surprise at how solid and natural the peripheral felt during play.

“In terms of control methods, nothing feels more natural than the sheer simplicity of ‘Point, Aim, Shoot’”, Ennin says. Mathijs concurs: “The peripheral made Killzone 3 immediately accessible to people who had never played a Killzone title before. Some reporters even stated that they preferred to play Killzone 3 with the sharp shooter instead of the DualShock 3, because they felt more immersed. That was a huge compliment for us.”
But it wasn’t until the week before Killzone 3’s release that Mathijs realized his other goal for the sharp shooter had also been achieved. “I was watching the PlayStation commercial for Killzone 3 and the sharp shooter and I suddenly realized, you know what – Kevin Butler looks absolutely badass holding that thing! That’s when I knew we’d fully achieved what we set out to do.”

The sharp shooter is available now as a standalone accessory and as part of the SOCOM 4 Full Deployment Edition.

It all began with a Helghast soldier using a PlayStation Move controller.

“We were at a game convention where the PlayStation Move was being demonstrated,” Guerrilla Games Director Mathijs de Jonge recalls. “We had several Helghast performers walking the show floor, and one of them decided to have a go at the PlayStation Move demo booth.”

For Mathijs, the image of a big, intimidating Helghast soldier waving about an innocuous game peripheral just felt off. “I could scarcely imagine him playing a game like Killzone that way,” Mathijs says. “He looked like he should be holding something resembling a weapon – something with a little oomph to it. A peripheral that not only played well, but looked cool at the same time.”

The event got Mathijs thinking about an add-on for the PlayStation Move. “We’d toyed with the idea of designing a Killzone-themed gun peripheral before,” Mathijs says, “but with the introduction of the PlayStation Move, that idea suddenly seemed a lot more feasible. The timing was right as well, because development on Killzone 3 was still in its early stages.”

Early mockups consisted of kitbashed gun peripherals from other platforms.

Mathijs voiced his idea at a Director’s Panel, where Sony Product Design Manager Ennin Huang was also in attendance. Having worked with the SOCOM team on the first Bluetooth headset for PlayStation 3, Ennin was heavily involved with the development of PlayStation peripherals. “After the panel, Ennin approached us and said he very much liked the idea of a solid, realistic-looking Move add-on,” Mathijs says. “He advised us to put together an official proposal and submit it to the Product Design team.”

For his proposal, Mathijs enlisted the help of Guerrilla Lead Concept Designer (and resident weapons expert) Roy Postma. “Mathijs wanted to design a gun peripheral that could represent the majority of firearms in Killzone 3,” Roy says. “We chose the Helghast StA-11 SMG as our starting point: like most weapons in the game it requires two hands to operate, but at the same time it’s quite compact.”

The first mockup housed the navigation controller in the rear grip.

Using foam board, duct tape and pieces of gun peripherals from several different platforms, Mathijs and Roy then constructed a mockup roughly approximating the StA-11’s size and shape. The mockup housed the navigation controller in the rear grip and the Move controller in the barrel, while a trigger mechanism in the fore grip connected to the Move’s T-button. This setup, however, proved impractical.

“When you play Killzone 3 on a DualShock 3 controller, you move around with your left thumb and fire with your right index finger,” Roy explains. “Our first mockup had it the other way around, making the setup somewhat awkward for right-handed people. So I went back to the drawing board to design a clip/fore grip that could house the navigation controller. I also moved the firing trigger back to the rear grip, where it normally resides on an StA-11.”

Guerrilla CEO Hermen Hulst tries out the revised mockup.

Instead of relying on a complicated (and possibly error-prone) physical pass-through mechanism to bridge the distance to the Move’s T-button, the trigger could simply be wired up to the Move’s extension connector digitally. This solution allowed Roy to add additional buttons to the body of the peripheral, saving players from having to reach for the Move controller in the barrel whenever they wanted to reload or swap weapons.

In the meantime, Mathijs worked on the proposal document, outlining the type of user experience he had in mind for the gun peripheral. “I wanted players to experience a sense of joy as soon as they picked up the peripheral,” Mathijs says. “It not only had to look cool and authentic, I also wanted it to feel like a weapon. It had to enhance the overall experience of playing a shooter on the PlayStation 3.”

Check back next week for the second part of sharp shooter Origins, in which the Guerrilla team gets help from their friends at Zipper Interactive!