Yesterday was the PS5 showcase that many had been waiting for. We finally got the launch date and price announcement everyone has been waiting on, as well as a preview of several titles coming both at launch and beyond. But it was afterward that gave some a shock when it was announced that several presumed PS5 exclusives were actually cross-gen and would be coming to PS4 as well: Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Sackboy: A Big Adventure and, maybe shockingly of all, Horizon Forbidden West.

All of those games were announced at a previous showcase in June, but Sony coyly hid their cross-gen nature until yesterday. Some fans were not too happy about that, especially those who are all in on next gen right off the bat. Speaking to The Washington Post, PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan said that fans really shouldn’t be upset, saying it’s all about choice. He reassures people that the PS5 versions of those games will be made to take advantage of the new hardware and there will be upgrade paths for those starting on PS4.

“No one should be disappointed,” he said. “The PS5 versions of those games are built from the ground up to take advantage of the PS5 feature set, and we have an upgrade path for PS4 users to get the PS5 versions for free. It’s about people having choice. I’m really quite pleased about the situation.”

Sackboy: A Big Adventure and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales will both be launch titles for the PS5 on November 12th, presumably alongside their PS4 versions. Horizon Forbidden West has no set date, only said to be coming at some point in 2021.

One of the most laudable switches a developer has made in this industry is Guerrilla Games, who went from making (not that great) first person shooters to an open world third person action RPG (which has been lauded as one of the greatest games of the generation). The transition is especially notable, when you consider how well Guerrilla Games nailed just about everything in Horizon at their very first attempt- it speaks to just how thorough they were.

But that thoroughness may have been born out of simple fear, because speaking to EDGE in their May issue (#318), Guerrilla’s technical director Michiel van der Leeuw talked about just how daunting the prospect of switching gears to a new genre, as well as a new generation, was at the beginning of the game’s development.

“We were pretty scared, but it was even more scary to do a generation switch and a genre switch at the same time,” he said, noting that the game was, as a result, given an extended pre-production with a skeleton crew of 14 people until development on Shadow Fall was complete.

The promise of the impending challenge made the development team add many Horizon specific features to Decima Engine, which was also being used for Killzone Shadow Fall back then.

“We were mainly just afraid of what was going to happen next,” he said. “Open world streaming was much more challenging than the linear things we were used to, even though we experimented with non-linearity in Shadow Fall. We had no idea how to script an open world. In non linear worlds, you can pick up a quest and wander off and do something else, and we had no idea how the scripting would deal with the complexities of the logic that required.”

It makes sense, too- open world games are by far the trickiest to get right, and a studio has to consider many things that it would otherwise not have to when creating a game. A lot of props and kudos are in order to Guerrilla for nailing Zero Dawn as well as they did. I can’t wait to see where they go with the game’s sequel.

You can check out the full story for the game and get more information in EDGE’s May issue. You can subscribe to the latest issue here.

Amidst all the controversy surrounding monetization policies such as use of loot boxes and microtransactions in video games, Sony’s Worldwide Studios still seems to be committed to the “creative side” of a game first and foremost.

Speaking to VG247, Michael Denny, Senior Vice President of SEC Worldwide Studios  and head of its European Operations stated that the company will continue supporting new IPs and developers who are passionate about their projects. He stated, “We always want to offer as much choice and as much diversity, as many different types of games as possible, to the PlayStation community. At Worldwide Studios, we really invest in and believe in the people we work with. We like them to come up with the creative ideas and the decisions for what they want to make, because we believe that when studios are passionate about what they want to make, we’re going to get the best games.”

The best example of the autonomy the company provides to its studios is the case of Guerrilla Games and their huge success with Horizon Zero Dawn. Additionally, Denny states that the company is committed to trying new things and will continue supporting experimental projects such as Media Molecule’s Dreams. It’s nice to see a company that grants studios autonomy to focus on their creative vision, and is first and foremost concerned with bringing diverse experiences to the gaming community.

Open world sandbox epic, Horizon Zero Dawn has just been updated to Patch 1.42, which tweaks the newly launched first and only expansion you can expect for the game, titled ‘The Frozen Wilds’.

Horizon Zero Dawn was one of the surprises of early 2017, building a vast, unique and beautiful world for players and protagonist Aloy to explore while the unravel the mystery of why machines are becoming more violent, as well as her own origins.

The Frozen Wilds released on November 7 to general critical acclaim, with a respectable 83 on Metacritic. The expansion takes Aloy beyond the northern mountains for a new mystery. The patch retouches some of the combat balance issues some players were experiencing with the content, other general improvements, as well as some specific Frostclaw and Fireclaw encounters during specific story missions.

Latest Patch 1.42:

We’re pleased to announce that Patch 1.42 for Horizon Zero Dawn: The Frozen Wilds will be released today! This patch provides general fixes for ‘The Frozen Wilds’ expansion.

Patch Summary:

• Fixed combat balance issues for some players in the quest storyline of ‘The Frozen Wilds’ expansion.
• Fixed a number of general improvements for ‘The Frozen Wilds’ expansion.

General Fixes:

• Rebalanced the encounter with the three Frostclaws during the quest ‘For The Werak’ on Story, Easy and Normal difficulty. The damage done by the Frostclaws depends on how many Frostclaws are left during the encounter.
• Rebalanced the encounter with the Fireclaw during the quest ‘The Forge of Winter’ on Story, Easy and Normal difficulty.

One of the biggest surprises of E3 was Horizon, the new IP by Guerrilla Games that was finally revealed after months and months of leaks and speculation. The game looked stunning, in scope and ambition, and hinted at the kind of gameplay potential that the impressive but staid Killzone games could never have achieved.

If you want to see all of Horizon that we have seen so far – but this time, with the developer’s direct input on it as well – then you will appreciate the dubbing over of developer commentary that has been done on the Horizon E3 trailer. In this video, senior producer Mark Norris breaks down everything that you see blow by blow, subjecting it to extensive analysis.

All in all, it is pretty exciting, and it gets me even more pumped for the game, now that I understand the vision driving it.

Horizon launches exclusively on PS4. Stay tuned for more coverage.

That Guerrilla Games, the creators of the middling Killzone franchise for PlayStation, are working on a brand new IP for the PlayStation 4 is well known- multiple job listings, alongside leaks which have shown that they seem to be working on what looks like an action RPG featuring dinosaurs (no, really) means that it’s a bit of an open secret at this point.

There were many people who expected the IP to be officially announced at the PlayStation Experience event that Sony held last weekend; however, there was nary a sign of it, and while many took to asking Guerrilla Games about their new game, they refused to talk about it at all.

Their exact quote, and I am not kidding about this, was, ‘Absolutely not,’ in reference to discussing their new project. [ At 28:00 minutes in the video above]

Which is… well, I mean, at least they are honest about it. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage and information.

Set three decades after the conflict of Killzone 3, Shadow Fall will see the Helghast being transported to the planet Vekta wherein they engage in a civil war for survival. The game debuted in February during the reveal of the PlayStation 4 and will be a launch title for the console when it releases. Thus far, it’s been impressive enough in the visuals department even if the gameplay isn’t anything phenomenally new. At least it’s capable of displaying up to 24 enemy AIs on screen at once before the frame rate dips.

Killzone: Shadow Fall releases on November 15th in North America and November 29th in Europe. Stay tuned for more details as we arrive ever closer to the launch of the PS4.

The Killzone: Shadow Fall campaign is allegedly more than ten hours long. Assuming this promise holds, this already makes it one of the longest single player campaigns for a first person shooter in a good while. Now, we get a better glimpse at the campaign via the newest trailer, which, in addition to showcasing the brilliant graphics technology powering this game, also lets us have a sneak peak at its story.

The Killzone: Shadow Fall campaign takes place thirty years after the Killzone trilogy (which makes it a perfect jumping in point for players who are not yet acquainted with the universe and lore of the game); the trailer offers us an intriguing look at what might be the most interesting premise for a Killzone game yet.

Killzone: Shadow Fall releases on PlayStation 4 on November 15 as a launch title; stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage on the title.

Modern console shooters, founded on the success of Halo 2, have one defining characteristic: a short, throwaway single player campaign supplemented by a multiplayer mode which is where the real meat of the game ostensibly lies. With the upcoming PlayStation 4 launch title Killzone: Shadow Fall, Sony and Guerrilla Games look to be trying to change that.

In a no holds barred Q&A that they posted on the Official PlayStation Blog, they have revealed that the Killzone: Shadow Fall campaign will be north of ten hours- which makes it longer than mostly every other big name shooter currently on the market. It also meand that, coupled with the already impressively substantial looking multiplayer mode that has been revealed, Killzone: Shadow Fall might be one of the most value for money shooters created for a console in recent years.

The full Q&A is actually pretty interesting, and it reveals a lot of information about the game (such as the fact that it does not actually use dedicated servers for online multiplayer, but only uses them to supplement the peer to peer backend). Give it a read if you are at all interested in the game.

Killzone: Shadow Fall launches day and date with the PlayStation 4 November 15.

Presentation

The game is set 30 years in the future after the events Killzone 3. Two major factions are divided by a wall in a middle, however, a war breaks out between the Helghast and the people of Vekta, and this is where the story starts to take place. Since the game is set 30 years in the future Killzone: Shadow Fall presents itself in a totally new different way by introducing futurstic sky scrappers and floating buildings scattered across the planet. It’s an interesting vision and definitely gives the game’s a unique world of its own.

Killzone: Shadow Fall has a very distinct style, right away you can tell that the game has its own look and feel to it. Also, what’s nice about the visual presentation is that the developers have decided to move away from the dark and gray color pallet that Killzone 2 and KIllzone 3 carried and instead they introduced more vibrant and colorful universe. Even though Killzone: Shadow Fall has changed its art-style completely the game still looks and feels as a Killzone title, which is a good thing.

I have to say that Killzone: Shadow Fall is undoubtedly the prettiest game on the PlayStation 4 along with Infamous: Second Son. When I first saw the game reveal demonstration my jaw hit the floor due to the epic scale that the game manages to pull off, beautiful visual art-style and gorgeous particle effects such as explosions and bullets flying everywhere.

The only unfortunate thing is that the game will not be running at 60 FPS, but instead Guerrilla Games has told me they will try to get it locked at 30 FPS. This is a first-generation title for the PlayStation 4, and it looks amazing, so it’s quite scary to think or even imagine what later-generation games will look like after developers have truly mastered and harnessed the power of the PlayStation 4.

Gameplay

The playable demo that was at E3 let players take part in a jungle/forest level. The forest level was gorgeous, plenty of trees, military bases and of course Helghast to kill. The demo introduced a couple of new game mechanics and also showed-off how the game is more non-linear in terms of gameplay choices.

While the game still asked you to get from point A to point B the way you’re able to get from one place to another was much more open. How are you going to tackle the bad guys in the upcoming area? Are you going to use your drone to stun them, engage the enemy from a vertical stand-point, flank them on the side or are you going to run’n’gun straight in? This is the way the game is less linear, you have more choices on how and where you engage your enemies from as opposed to the two previous games where you just move from corridor to corridor.

One of the new interesting additions to the Killzone: franchise was the drone that follows you wherever you go from the beginning of the game all the way to the end. The drone can be assigned different commands such as putting up a shield in front of you to defend yourself from oncoming bullets, stunning enemies in an area with an EMP, direct assault and hacking terminals. The drone adds strategic freedom and more fun elements to the pace of the game.

I am happy to say that if you’re worried that the game has lost its “Killzone” feel in terms of gameplay I can safely reassure you that it hasn’t. It still feels like a Killzone game but with more choices, varied environments, strategic elements, beautiful visuals and best of all a large improvement to the gameplay. The weapons in Killzone: Shadow Fall felt great in terms of weight and power, I can’t wait to try out all the alternate attacks for each gun that the game has to offer.

My only few complaints during my play-through of Killzone: Shadow Fall was the loss of frame-rate in certain areas and controls that got a bit confusing due to the many new functions in the game such as assigning drone commands and launching a zip-line to platform across throughout the level. However, the developers did reassure me that the game will be optimized and locked at 30 FPS at launch, and the controls are still being worked on.

As far as the multiplayer goes, nothing was introduced or talked about in terms of the multiplayer details. However, the developer did tell me that the multiplayer is an immense component for Killzone: Shadow Fall with many new features and surprises that will be introduced at Gamescom on August 21st.

Conclusion

I was satisfied with Killzone: Shadow Fall and I am looking forward to playing the game when it launches later this year along with PlayStation 4. If you want to impress your friends with beautiful graphics and show-off the power of the PlayStation 4 then Killzone: Shadow Fall would be the perfect title. However, there are still many details that we don’t know about the game such as the multiplayer component and will the overall campaign play-out once the game is released. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for our review of Killzone: Shadow Fall in the coming months. For now, though keep your eyes peeled for more information and updates.