Speaking with Edge, Guerrilla Games’ director Hermen Hulst and technical director Michiel Van Der Leeuw talked about the studio taking a more vibrant approach to Shadow Fall’s aesthetics. They also discussed how the technological overhaul that comes with the PS4 has allowed his team to envision things a little differently for the latest iteration in the Killzone series.

While the sense of scale is far more prominent this time around, Hulst made it clear that Shadow Fall won’t be an open-world game. However, he also pointed out that it won’t be as linear as past games either, and will offer a multitude of options for players to explore. Given that the game’s environments are larger, their traversal can vary depending on what choices the player makes.

“One of the things we weren’t able to do [before] is on this scale create this vibrant, living city and then in typical Killzone style, of course, we wanted to have it come under attack. We wanted to introduce a few things that are different.” “We have multiple environments, clearly, but this is a key part of it. We really liked the architecture of it. We certainly picked a setting that allowed us to show off things like what we can do with lighting and reflection and I guess that makes a difference. The drive and the reach for a larger environment has to do with more choice, more options, how you traverse being able to play a level in a different way, making it less corridor-y.”

With E3 on the horizon, there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing new footage that demonstrates some of these player-driven choices that Hulst and Leeuw discussed.