Yesterday, Killzone Shadow Fall Lead Designer Eric Boltjes held a presentation on the game’s multiplayer mode at the 2013 Eurogamer Expo in London. Afterwards he also fielded questions from the audience, going into greater detail about some of Killzone Shadow Fall’s features and design choices.

You can watch the whole presentation here:





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In addition to the answers Mr. Boltjes provided, we’ve compiled a list of some of the more frequently asked questions that have appeared online following our announcement of the multiplayer mode. In particular, we received numerous questions about the multiplayer framerate so, let’s dive right in:

Will Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer have a variable frame rate? No, we’re running 60fps. However, the game may drop a few frames in extreme situations – when there are a lot of GPU-intensive things going on at once. Guaranteeing a constant 60fps under such circumstances would’ve required undesired concessions. We wanted to make sure Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer would present a visual spectacle, boasting a stunning level of detail in 1080p at 60fps, while still allowing 24 players and their drones (effectively 48 entities) to take part at once. We’re very proud of the results – when you move through the maps you’ll notice lots of intricate details, from beautiful reflective surfaces to individually moving leaves on the foliage.

We’ve also received several questions about the new Classes and their abilities:

What happened to [multiplayer class X] from previous Killzone games? There are now three classes to choose from in Killzone Shadow Fall: Assault Class, Support Class and Scout Class. Classes from previous Killzone titles such as the Tactician, Engineer and Medic are now represented by the secondary abilities of the highly versatile Support Class. We’ll have more on the Support Class and the Scout Class in upcoming Killzone.com articles. How are the Assault Class Nano Shields balanced? As mentioned in our Assault Class article, Nano Shields can block enemy attacks while allowing your projectiles through. Activation isn’t instantaneous, though – there’s a slight delay as you set it up, and you won’t be able to wield your weapon during this period. After activation you have to wait until the shield is destroyed or dismantled before you can place a new one. How are the Support Class Spawn Beacons balanced? Killzone Shadow Fall sees the return of player-deployed spawn points, known as Spawn Beacons. The Support Class has the ability to place them almost anywhere in the map (like Killzone 2’s Spawn Grenades), but it takes a while to set them up (like Killzone 3’s Tactical Spawn Points). Spawn Beacons can be destroyed by any class, although some weapons will yield quicker results than others.

Next, a couple of points about weapons in Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer:

Will rocket launchers be secondary weapons, like in Killzone 3? Rocket launchers aren’t secondary weapons like they were for certain classes in Killzone 3. Instead, grenade launchers and rocket launchers will be available as attachments for the heavier primary weapons. This means less weapon switching in the heat of battle. I prefer hip-firing rather than aiming down sights – can I still do that? If you’re one of those players endowed with dead aim, you’ll be happy to know that ‘hip-firing’ (firing a weapon without using the sights) is still an option in Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer. Some weapons can only be fired by aiming down the sights, however – particularly the heavier/more dangerous ones.

Concerning the new Custom Warzones feature:

Will there be official Warzones? For those who prefer their Warzones tried-and-tested, there will be default Warzones to play in. In addition, Guerrilla will frequently try out and highlight new and interesting custom Warzones created by the community. Both types of Warzones will be easily accessible from inside the game. Can Challenges be completed in bots-only Warzones? To emphasize true skill and prevent players from artificially boosting their stats, custom Warzone games featuring bots will not count towards completing challenges in the Progression System. Can I play Custom Warzones against just my friends? Custom Warzones can be private games that only you and friends can play. This is particularly useful if you want to train in a less competitive environment, or if your custom Warzone is a work in progress that you’re not ready to share with the community yet.

A word about Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer network structure and colorblind support:

What is Killzone Shadow Fall’s multiplayer network structure like? Killzone Shadow Fall has dedicated servers hosted in various regions around the world. These servers do not run the logic of the game – they only act as a hub between the clients, forwarding network traffic from one player in game to all other players in game. This allows people with a slower connection or strict firewall settings to play without issues. Almost all logic relating to you (e.g. moving, shooting and taking damage) runs on your local PS4, with only a very small portion of the game logic (i.e. mission/scoring logic) running on the ‘session master’, one PS4 in the game selected for its connection quality. Will Killzone Shadow Fall offer colorblind support? Killzone Shadow Fall will have colorblind support options that can be activated from the options menu.

Finally, the recent Season Pass announcement generated some confusion, so we’d like to clear that up:

If multiplayer map packs are free, what is the Season Pass for? The Killzone Shadow Fall Season Pass entitles you to: an online co-op expansion pack that introduces a brand-new horde mode for up to 4 players three arena map packs for use with the online co-op expansion pack, and two additional multiplayer expansion packs that will be detailed at a later date. The expansion packs and map packs covered by the Season Pass do not include maps for Killzone Shadow Fall’s built-in multiplayer mode – as we’ve said before , such maps will be released for free so as not to fragment the online community.

Feel free to post your questions about Killzone Shadow Fall multiplayer in the comments below – we’ll try to answer what we can. Additional facts and details about the game are coming very soon, so keep an eye on Killzone.com and the PlayStation Blog!