Back at E3, I went hands-on with Killzone: Shadow Fall thoroughly impressed by what I played as I rapidly went from skeptical to excited about the launch day shooter.

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“ Guerrilla multiplayer approach revolves around three key tenets...

Deploy your shield!

“ On the periphery, Killzone: Shadow Fall is deceivingly simple.

Customize your character before the killing begins.

“ Creating a ruleset is all about controlling the minutiae in Shadow Fall...

You've never seen so many colors in a Killzone game before.

“ The game feels less heavy than previous Killzone games...

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“ [DualShock 4 is] so clearly a controller designed to make the life of the PlayStation shooter fan easier…

Killzone: Shadow Fall is also at Gamescom 2013, and this time, Guerrilla has decided to focus entirely on its game’s multiplayer functionality. Not surprisingly, Shadow Fall’s online component appears to be very strong, continuing the trend first started with Killzone 2 and Killzone 3 on PlayStation 3.Guerrilla's multiplayer approach revolves around three key tenets: they want it to be accessible to all players, they want it to be a game that you continuously get better at, and they want it to be a game that nurtures a community and contributes to its longevity and growth. From what I played, Shadow Fall easily has the potential to fulfill all three goals, though whether it will when it’s launched into the wild remains to be seen.These classes constitute typical multiplayer fare, and as with any good online shooter, the way these classes interact with one another can make or break the experience. But it seems that even for new players – which was everyone playing in the room – team dynamics shone through. Players were reviving each other, snipers snuck around in the background, and bruisers rushed forward to both take and deliver the brunt of the team’s damage. Even for newbies, the class system was easy enough to understand as teams began to organically figure things out, even if the final result as a team was a very far cry from what Killzone veterans will be accustomed to once they jump into Shadow Fall.There’s further beauty to this challenge system, however, since there’s a more practical application for it apart from the online ranking and associated metagame. Completing challenges will unlock new scopes, improved abilities, and more, meaning that if you dedicate yourself to mastering Killzone: Shadow Fall, you’ll have more to show for it than merely a numerical ranking.Killzone: Shadow Fall also introduces a vast array of match controls under the guise of “Warzone Options,” or the ability to craft detailed and completely unique sets of rules that can be contained to your group of friends or shared with the world. Creating a ruleset is all about controlling the minutiae in Shadow Fall; you can swap game types on the fly like in previous Killzone games, but you can also turn off certain weapons, abilities, attachments, and more. You can have complete control over the experience, should you want to dive in that deep.Of course, while all of these options and features are great, they’d all be useless if Killzone: Shadow Fall wasn’t fun to play. The good news is that Shadow Fall is decidedly enjoyable in a multiplayer environment. The matches I played suffered from some technical hiccups -- including an occasionally stuttering framerate and sound that completely cut out – but the core of the experience was fluid and responsive. The game feels less heavy than previous Killzone games, your opponents appear to have just the right amount of sponginess, and it’s clear from the way the game plays and the aforementioned options that Guerrilla has been paying close attention to some of its competitors in the shooter space.I was also pleased to learn that Guerrilla has “extensive plans” to support Killzone: Shadow Fall after it's released. The game will launch with 10 maps, but as we first reported yesterday , all subsequent maps released will be made available completely free of charge. And there’s a team at Guerrilla already dedicated to making this DLC, so you can probably expect those maps sooner rather than later.Killzone: Shadow Fall will be available for PlayStation 4 when the console launches this November.

Colin Moriarty is IGN’s Senior Editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.