Big Changes Coming to Killzone: Shadow Fall

Guerrilla Games, the developer behind the Killzone series, has posted an extensive amount of changes that will be trickling into Killzone: Shadow Fall, the latest installment on the PS4. Unlike your normal run-of-the-mill changes, the changes that will be coming are large in scope like a clan system, new ranking mechanisms, and in-game voice chat. After the jump, the full list of changes await you.

Coming Soon

Sniper friendly Map

As part of our free DLC, one of the first few maps being prepped for release has some long engagement distances that might help snipers suppress enemies and support their team. Of course, it is designed to have alternate routes that can help Supports and Assaults break the flank as well. Stay tuned for more news on our next map drop.

Ammo Supply Boxes Showing up on the Mini Map

We’re not planning to have fixed ammo locations in the map, as the support class can place them anywhere in the map. However, we are working on ways to make these locations much more obvious on the radar.

In Development

In-Game voice chat

While the game was set up to allow users to speak with the parties they created and people they trust, you have indicated this does make teamwork among strangers more difficult. As team-based gameplay is our main focus, we are currently working on this feature as a top priority. We are targeting the December update to have this functionality. It will automatically enable you to talk to your faction and will allow you to mute players (to retain that classic Killzone: Shadow Fall feel).

In Design:

Being Able to Identify my Party Members

We are designing ways for you to identify your team members and party members. One of the things we have done is print names of party members in blue on the scoreboard and in game. We’ll keep a close eye on this to see if this adds more clarity to players.

Clan System

We are in the process of designing the clan system and it will be deployed in phases. It will be better suited for Shadow Fall’s team oriented, objectives based gameplay. We expect the first deployment to be early 2014.

Ranking System

Instead of an XP system, we currently add skill-based ranks based on the challenges you have completed. As the community has indicated it really would like to see a ranking system that also would show their progress as a player, we are currently designing a ranking system that celebrates this challenge progress and assigns players with rank names and accompanying icons.

Under Consideration/Investigation:

Player Scorecard Split Into Teams

We are actively looking into ways to put this information in the most logical way possible for Shadow Fall’s gameplay. No final decision on an implementation has been made yet.

Hip Firing

We are considering this and are currently gathering and studying our gameplay data on hip firing accuracy and whether it is working/not working as intended. We need to be very careful about tweaking the accuracy, as this could inadvertently unbalance the game in another direction. No final decision has been made yet.

Overpowered Drones

Again, we are looking into the gameplay data for Air Support drones and turrets. No final decision yet.

In-Game Party System

We rely on the PSN party system which works across all games. We are considering creating our own party-system to accommodate more ad hoc squad based play.

Not at the Moment:

Killzone 2 Style Proximity Chat

We feel that the in game voice chat and Multiplayer battle chatter (both in development) are the first set of in game voice improvements we want. We should revisit this feature if the community still wants it after they have been listening to the new voice enhancements.

Display K/D ratio for everyone

We do not think worrying about your deaths is the way to playShadow Fall, and a lot of the community members actually enjoy our renewed focus on objectives and team based gameplay. That being said, all players have the ability to create Warzones with Kills and Deaths as Primary and Secondary sorting on the leaderboards.

Co-op Mode to Have Playable Helghast

Our team is currently working on the design of the co-op mode, and fine tuning the gameplay. Stay tuned for news on playable characters – we can’t confirm which characters you will play with at this time, but we can confirm you will not be playing as a Helghast.

Not Yet, But…

Customized Multiplayer Announcements

Adding customized multiplayer announcements is certainly an option, but we don’t want the game to get too noisy and distracting. As we will soon be releasing a new feature that lets you customize your Multiplayer battle chatter (“reviving”, “shield activated…” etc.), we will review this feature again after that customization of MP chatter is in the game, which is targeted to be part of the December update.

If there are other changes you’d like to see come to the PS4 exclusive, you can visit http://feedback.killzone.com and give the team your feedback.