Despite once being called the Halo-killer, the Killzone franchise has been dead since 2013’s Killzone Shadow Fall, although in fairness, Halo Studios and Microsoft have done a pretty good job of killing Halo themselves. But now, Killzone might be coming back.
That’s according to MP1ST who have managed to get word from “people familiar with the situation.” that a Killzone remaster/remake project is in the works. Interestingly, Guerilla is said to be working on the project with the help of an external studio outside of the PlayStation family.
MPS1ST was told that the Killzone remake/remaster was going to be Guerilla’s next focus after Horizon Hunter’s Gathering, but it was recently reported that negative feedback resulted in that game getting rebooted, potentially including the live-service elements being ripped out. Getting this fixed is now Guerilla’s top-priority before they can allocate a chunk of their team to Killzone.
As for which Killzone is being remade or remastered, MPS1ST’s sources didn’t say. But I agree with their own opinion: the original seems most likely, especially if Sony is planning on bringing the series back in any meaningful capacity.
MPS1ST also briefly touches on Horizon 3, saying that Killzone is supposed to launch before it, but that Killzone is in such early development that this may change.
Finally, MP1ST also takes a stab at who the external partner might be, pointing out that in March 2025, Sony signed a deal with People Can Fly to co-develop a game codenamed Delta. MPS1St says they’ve heard that whoever is co-developer is likely to be leading the project. If true, we could therefore assume Killzone been in development since March 2025.
People Can Fly makes a hell of a lot of sense. They’ve got a wealth of experience with shooters and are very much developers for hire at the moment. However, that’s also the worrying bit – People Can Fly have a lot going on right now, including working on Xbox’s Gears of War: E-Day. They’re also co-developing something with 2K Games under the codenamed Project Florence, and working with Krafton as well. That’s a busy slate.
If not People Can Fly, who else might it be? I’d say PCF is the safe bet, but Climax Studio might be a possibility, too. They recently worked with Bend on Days Gone Remastered, and have worked on Returnal and Mafia: Definitive Edition.
Then there’s Virtous, the team behind many a remake like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered, Metal gear Solid Delta and Dark Souls Remastered. They also already have a working relationshop with Guerilla, having worked on Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West. They don’t have the shooter expertise that People Can Fly does, but they have an established relationship with the team, which might count for a lot.
Whoever it ends up being, it looks like there’s a chance Killzon is coming back, and there’s a strong chance this will be a tester to see if the franchise is worth reviving properly.