Interviews// Killzone 3 Senior Producer, Steven Ter Heide

SPOnG: I’m reminded of the control system in Killzone 2 which was a much bigger controversy than it probably should have been. What do you think of that furore now, looking back on it?

Steven Ter Heide: Basically, it was a bug. There was a bug in Killzone 2 which caused a delay in timing between a button press and the action on screen. There was too much lag in that. And that wasn’t our intention - we didn’t think to make it more weighty by creating a second-delay to button presses. It did end up feeling like we did it on purpose though, and that wasn’t the case.

The thing is, at the time a lot of people had been waiting so long for Killzone 2 to come out and so we thought that the controls were fine and we could make that the way you’re supposed to play. Players then started to compensate for the bug, in terms of how the game is played and how you respond. I think we see that behaviour from the hardcore fans who really liked the old control schemes, and they gain a certain skillset that they’re now proud of.

But what about those that weren’t able to compensate? Now we’ve fixed things and given everyone a level playing field, and all players get to enjoy it. Those hardcore players might ask, ‘What about those skills I learned? Do they still matter?’ Well yes, your skills do still matter - there’s still recoil and other weapon nuances that are still in the game, so it’s not like we completely changed Killzone 3’s engine or anything.

But it is a tricky thing to try and accommodate a larger group of people, because at the same time Killzone 2’s bug put off a lot of people as well. They found it too slow with sluggish movements, and it will be a challenge to win those guys back. It’s a very fine balance and a tricky thing to get right.


SPOnG: The engine you’re using for Killzone 3 is really impressive - do you have any plans to use it beyond the franchise, and even genre, into other games in the future?

Steven Ter Heide: We have announced that we are working on new IP, so we’re looking into directions for that. But, well… to be honest, I want a holiday first before I start thinking about anything new (laughs)! So I think we first have to get this game out the door, onto shelves, look at DLC and patches, then take a holiday, and then think of what we want to do next.

The engine is certainly very powerful, we can do a lot of things with it. It’s tailored towards the kind of gameplay that Killzone needs - optimised for a first-person perspective, very action-heavy and contains plenty of effects and post-processing. So that’s what the engine’s built for.

I really believe that we should make the technology hand in hand with your games, because that makes for a better mix ultimately. You can really focus on the things that adds value to that particular game, rather than getting an off-the-shelf engine which you have to work your game around. If you have to keep asking an engine if it can do this or that for your game, that’s not a really strong point for that engine. We can make it into a strong point.

That technology is certainly important, but for new IP it may mean we have to make adjustments to the Killzone 3 engine, set it up in a different way depending on what the new IP is going to be.


SPOnG: Would it be difficult to customise the Killzone 3 engine for another genre or purpose if you decided to go down that route?

Steven Ter Heide: Of course. There’s so many little things and details that we add to the engine to focus on that particular experience. The lens blur on the weapons so that it feels like it’s coming out of the TV screen, and the draw distances we have are completely different from say, a racing game.

If you make a racing game, it’s all about being able to judge where the corners are and looking into the distance - our game has a combat distance, which is much shorter. We’re not looking a kilometre ahead there. All the detail therefore is immediately around you, and not so much in the distance.

It’s just different things, at the end of the day. I’m not saying we’re making a racing game, I’m not saying we’re making a football game (laughs)! But it’s different things for different games and we believe that the technology really needs to be built around the experience. So there will be substantial changes if we step away from first-person.


SPOnG: It’d be quite interesting to see a football game in the Killzone universe.

Steven Ter Heide: Absolutely! It would be an interesting pitch to Sony as well.


SPOnG: In multiplayer, you’ve added a system where players can earn new abilities and weapons. It seems that other first party titles like Motorstorm Apocalypse are including party modes, in-game messaging systems and similar community functionalities. Will we see any of this in Killzone 3?

Steven Ter Heide: Absolutely, that’s something we’ve already done in Killzone 2, we’ve done the clan support. For a console game it’s pretty much unrivalled. there’s no other game that has as extensive a clan support that we have. Combine that with the killzone.com website companion to the game, where you can find a lot of stats and see bragging rights along with leaderboards.

For Killzone 3 we’re taking that yet another step further, so again Killzone.com is going to be expanded and include a lot of new features. The clan support is still there - we really understand that multiplayer games are at its core about the social aspect of you playing with your friends as it is about revenge or being on top of the leaderboards. Your friends and your enemies in multiplayer are just very important.

The party system is something that’s new for Killzone 3, we had a lot of complaints from Killzone 2 - people saying ‘there’s no party system, I can’t stay together with my friends in one game. There’s no way to invite my friends.’ That’s something we added to Killzone 3 because again the social aspect of it is key.