Guerrilla Games, the PlayStation studio behind the Killzone series, has seemingly shot down the notion that it will return to the first-person shooter franchise down the road. In recent years, Guerrilla has become synonymous with Horizon, primarily through Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West. Before it ever started working on Horizon, though, Guerrilla had primarily only released Killzone games across PS2, PS3, PSP, and PS4. Despite still having many fans of Killzone around the globe, though, many within Guerrilla don’t sound interested in returning to the property.
Speaking to The Washington Post, Guerrilla’s art director Roy Postma said that Killzone is a series that veterans of the company were “done with” by the time it turned the page to Horizon. Although Postma didn’t outright shoot down the idea of returning to Killzone, he indicated that Guerrilla continues to be more excited by the themes and narratives of its Horizon games. It was also noted that Horizon is much more for all ages in comparison to Killzone, which was more mature and dark in its tone.
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“We were done with it as a team,” said Postma of Killzone. “As a studio, we needed to refresh the palette. It was, by choice, the opposite of Killzone. I think the themes that this story and the characters represent are relatable for all ages and people, like having a found family of friends and finding your place in the world.”
If there is hope for a Killzone revival, it would now seemingly lie with another company working on the IP. Historically, PlayStation has chosen to outsource its own exclusives to developers outside of its studio structure on a handful of occasions over the years. Titles like Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, God of War: Chains of Olympus, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure all came about from studios that don’t belong to PlayStation Studios. As such, if those in charge at Sony really did want to do something new with Killzone, perhaps it could strike a deal with a developer that is eager to work on the series.
Until that happens, though, it sounds as though Killzone will remain on ice with 2013’s Killzone: Shadowfall continuing to be the most recent entry in the franchise. In the near term, Guerrilla is gearing up to release LEGO Horizon Adventures, which will launch across PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC on November 14th.