LordOfChaos
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It’s Time for Sony to Bring Back Killzone and Resistance - IGN
Sony is in the middle of an FPS crisis, but bringing back two much-loved PlayStation shooters could easily be the solution.
Following on from PlayStation’s State of Play, we now have a solid look at many of the PS5’s upcoming titles. Your mileage may vary on how the lineup looks but the recurring question of where all the PS5 games are hasn’t quite been answered. Some of the biggest games at the showcase were remakes or remasters of older games such as Until Dawn or the Silent Hill 2 remake, or PC ports of already released titles like God of War: Ragnarok. That’s not to say there weren’t some big new PS5 games shown, but one in particular has me scratching my head at what we’re supposed to take away from it.
That would be Concord, the debut game from first-party PlayStation developer Firewalk Studios. A 5v5 endless multiplayer shooter, the game didn’t exactly give me the best first impression. The writing and characters in the cinematic trailer feel like microwaved Guardians of the Galaxy leftovers, and knowing that this is an Overwatch-like hero shooter where the pretty cutscenes and lore won’t actually be reflected in the gameplay doesn’t help. Of course, Concord could very well surprise once we get our hands on it, but Sony putting such heavy focus on a game that looks so bland just brings to mind that they have two solid first-party shooter IPs that have been languishing in their back-catalog for far too long: Killzone and Resistance. Why should Sony bring these forgotten franchises back to the spotlight? Let me explain.
Sony’s FPS Crisis
Concord being the first game shown during the State of Play isn’t something that happened in a vacuum. Ever since Microsoft announced its intention to purchase Activision, there has been a question mark hovering above the PlayStation brand, that being what’s going to happen to the Call of Duty franchise now that its direct competitor owns it. A big part of Sony’s argument in the regulation case that tried and failed to block the Activision purchase hinged on Call of Duty, with Sony stating during the case that “Microsoft claims that Nintendo’s differentiated model demonstrates that PlayStation doesn’t need Call of Duty to compete effectively. But this reveals Microsoft’s true strategy… Post-Transaction, Xbox would become the one-stop-shop for all the best-selling shooter franchises on console.”
Right now, Sony doesn’t have a prominent FPS to call its own.
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However, none of that changes the fact that right now, Sony doesn’t have a prominent FPS to call its own. Helldivers 2 was certainly a surprise smash hit, but it’s a third-person shooter with no campaign. There’s also the recent snafu about the PSN login requirement that, although it was walked back, still caused much chaos in the game’s community and led the game to be delisted in 177 countries. Sony needs a big win in the FPS space to counteract Microsoft gobbling up the likes of Activision, Blizzard, and Id Software. Luckily, Sony has two old franchises waiting in the wings that could help it out of this bind.
Helghan Forever
At a time when a big part of Sony’s brand is its focus on AAA first-party games like The Last of Us, God of War, Horizon, or Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, Killzone being left out to dry is a serious missed opportunity. More so than most other franchises, Killzone was synonymous with the PlayStation brand in the PS3 era, with Killzone 2’s release in February of 2009 being something of a landmark moment for a console that seriously struggled with quality exclusives in its first couple of years. Alongside the likes of Metal Gear Solid 4 and Uncharted 2, Killzone 2 helped change the PS3’s reputation and finally made it a worthy competitor to the Xbox 360. That it was a sequel to a game that was not that well-received in the first place only made Killzone 2 all the more remarkable.
