Guerrilla Games has made it big with Horizon: Zero Dawn, their open world action RPG that hit the PS4 earlier this year to rave reviews and an impressive amount of copies sold. The success of the game all but assures that there will be a follow up- that it will, in fact, become a tentpole franchise for Sony.
Which is all well and good, but it also does cast a giant question mark over the fate of the Killzone franchise. Fans of Sony and Guerrila’s flawed first person shooter series apparently are eager to know exactly whether or not we may expect more titles in the future.
“I get asked that question a lot through Twitter and other social media channels,” Guerrilla Games’ managing director, Hermen Hulst, said in a recent interview with the Academy of Interactive Arts & Science.
“It’s really heartwarming to hear that there’s such a strong appetite from the loyal Killzone fanbase. It’s a franchise and universe that we still love with a passion at Guerrilla. It hasn’t been easy doing something so completely different. Whether or not we’ve put a permanent period behind the series, it’s too early to make announcements on that. All I can say is that we’ve always loved the Killzone universe and the Killzone series, and we still do. We share that passion for the game with a lot of our fans.”
Which is… not even close to a clear answer, let’s be honest. This could be interpreted either way- it could mean the franchise is dead, but he doesn’t want to say it in as many words, or it could mean that it’s still around, but Guerrilla doesn’t want to divert attention from Horizon for now.
My personal theory is that there will be new Killzone games- but they will not be by Guerrilla, and will instead be handed by Sony to some other studio, while Guerrilla themselves continue to work on Horizon.