It’s been nine years since the release of Killzone 2 and it’s still one of my favorite games of all time. I spent countless afternoons playing Warzone in hectic 32 player servers, chucking grenades and blasting away at Helghast and ISA alike with my trusty M82 rifle. And when Killzone 3 was announced in May of 2010, I was thrilled. The series had nowhere to go but up.

With its very first entry into the then current console generation, Guerilla Games had seemingly perfected the gritty action shooter formula popularized by Call of Duty 4 just two years earlier. Boasting action packed gameplay and impressive visuals and sounds, Guerilla’s 2009 installment offered a considerable improvement over its clunkier PS2 predecessor. Despite the game’s below average sales in its opening months, Killzone 2 went on to be a success, allowing the studio another chance to improve upon its sci-fi masterpiece.

When fans got their first look at Killzone 3 during E3 2010, a significant shift in tone was immediately clear. Gone were the urban jungles and sandy wastelands of Killzone 2, in came snowy vistas and alien forests. The change in scenery was both refreshing and a little disappointing. Grittiness, once the staple of Killzone, suddenly seemed to be gone. Had Guerilla already forgotten what had made Killzone special? Still, it was easier to be wowed by the game’s impressive new visuals than to see this as the warning it was. When Killzone 3 finally released in February of 2011, the results were… less than thrilling.

Killzone 3 introduced new environments

Killzone hadn’t just received a facelift, it had received a whole new body. Gone was the weightiness of the weapons and characters. Gone too were sprawling and memorable multiplayer maps, the cramped city slums and industrial refineries which had been the sites of many frantic 32 player gun battles. Killzone 3, with its increased emphasis on quick reaction times and smaller scale matches, had taken a turn that was already becoming far too familiar. But to understand exactly why Killzone 3 didn’t quite live up to its 2009 predecessor, we have to break things down.

Responsiveness & Pace

One of the biggest trademarks of Killzone 2 was the weight of its controls. Player characters were imbued with a distinct heaviness that caused them to turn, crouch, jump and do just about everything at a slower rate than many other shooters of the time. The game received both praise and criticism for this lack of responsiveness, which was actually a product of input lag, a delay between a button press on a controller and the corresponding action it triggers in game. Although it probably sounds strange to praise something that is generally considered to be a technical issue, Killzone 2’s input lag was actually one of its most distinguishing features. The inaccuracy and vulnerability caused both by intentional game mechanics and unintentional (some fans claim otherwise) input lag meant that players would need to be cautious as well as work together in order to overcome their individual weaknesses. There was simply no room for the lone wolves and one man armies so common to other shooters of the decade. And though Killzone risked becoming an overly slow, clunky and all around boring shooter because of its controls, it wasn’t. Short spawn times threw players back into the action quickly, the tactician class could deploy spawn points for their team almost anywhere on the map, and ammo boxes scattered throughout the battlefield helped keep intense firefights fueled.

Killzone 3 changed nearly all of this. The game’s responsiveness was completely revised with Guerilla dropping the weighty sensation almost entirely in favor of a safer, floatier one. As a result, lone wolves were once more free to run and gun at breakneck speeds throughout the map, with skilled players dominating the scoreboards and making the experience of everyone else an all around frustrating one.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Guerilla Games producer Steven ter Heide explained the game’s transformation:

“We felt that the original Killzone was aimed at the hardcore, a little too much, and it should be opened up a lot more so that everyone can enjoy it.”

Heide went on to claim that with new changes present in Killzone 3, the game’s audience could widen:

“whether you’re run-and-gun or a more tactical player, however you want to play it, you can find that in Killzone.”

But whether or not it was actually possible to strike a balance between tactical and mindless, Killzone 3 did not succeed, its loyalties clearly lying with the new generation of instant gratification shooters.

Map Design & Mechanics

For fans of Killzone 2, maps like Radec Academy and Salamun Market are about as iconic as Counter-Strike’s Dust 2 or Halo’s Blood Gulch. They have long been remembered for their unique setting, cinematic visuals, and dynamic gameplay, so much so that they were eventually reintroduced multiple times as DLC in Killzone 3, Killzone: Mercenary, and Killzone: Shadow Fall. But what exactly made Killzone 2’s maps so captivating compared to the series’ more recent designs? The answer is verticality. While verticality is a fairly standard aspect of map design, Killzone 2 made extensive and effective use of it in nearly all of its maps. Corinth Crossing, which takes place on, above, and below a large bridge, was perhaps the epitome of Killzone 2’s emphasis on vertical gameplay, offering players unorthodox but exciting multi-level action which encouraged clever thinking and plenty of unexpected encounters. Other maps like Helghan Industries and Pyrrhus Rise also demonstrated a keen eye for the dynamics created by multi-story map design, featuring uphill battles, multiple vantage points, and risky but rewarding shortcuts.

Corinth Crossing: One of the most dramatic examples of Killzone 2’s vertical map design

Verticality, though still present in Killzone 3, was toned down considerably as Guerilla attempted placed a greater focus on more simplified and supposedly quicker gameplay. But with the vertical scale of the maps significantly reduced they became too simple, and the increased amount of visual clutter (e.g. foliage and debris) which now scattered maps caused the pace of the game to slow down rather than speed up, with players spending more time wandering throughout the battlefield than actually shooting things.