After The state of PlayStation, we now have a good look at many of the PS5’s upcoming titles. Your mileage may vary depending on what the setup looks like, but the recurring question is where all the PS5 games are has not yet been fully answered. Some of the biggest games in 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 such as God of War: Ragnarok. That’s not to say there weren’t some big new PS5 games shown off, but one in particular has me scratching my head as to what we should take away from it.
That would be Agreement, 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 leftovers from Guardians of the Galaxy, and knowing that this is an Overwatch-esque hero shooter where the fancy cutscenes and lore aren’t really reflected in the gameplay doesn’t help. Of course, Concord could very well surprise once we get our hands on it, but Sony putting so much effort into a game that looks so bland just reminds us that they have two solid first-party shooter IPs that wither away at their backs. catalog for far too long: Killzone and Resistance. Why should Sony put these forgotten franchises back in the spotlight? Let me explain.
Sony’s FPS crisis
Since Concord is the first game shown during the State of Play, this isn’t something that happened in a vacuum. Ever since Microsoft announced its intention to buy Activision, a question mark has hung over the PlayStation brand: what will happen to the Call of Duty franchise now that its direct competitor owns it. A large part of Sony’s argument the regulatory case that tried and failed to block Activision’s purchase centered on Call of Duty, with Sony stating during the case that “Microsoft claims that Nintendo’s tiered model shows that PlayStation does not need Call of Duty to compete effectively. But this reveals Microsoft’s true strategy… After the transaction, Xbox would become the one-stop shop for all the best-selling shooter franchises on console.”
To address concerns, Microsoft and Sony signed an agreement to keep the long-running series multiplatform, but such agreements aren’t bulletproof. Microsoft has complete control over the Call of Duty IP, meaning Sony is essentially at its mercy when it comes to that franchise. However, Sony’s argument that PlayStation needs Call of Duty to stay competitive is a defeatist mentality. The fact that Call of Duty is the number one shooter franchise is not predestined by the gods. Franchises go up and down all the time; look at how Halo went from the top of the universe in the mid-2000s to simply ‘one of many’ shooters in the modern era, or how Overwatch was the biggest thing in the world at launch and now becomes a joke as Blizzard tries and fails to deliver on the many promises of what Overwatch 2 should have been.
However, none of that changes the fact that Sony doesn’t have a prominent FPS to call its own at the moment. Helldivers 2 was certainly a surprise hit, but it’s a third-person shooter without a campaign. There’s also the recent con about the PSN sign-in requirement: although it was walked backstill caused a lot of chaos in the gaming community and led to the game’s creation deleted in 177 countries. Sony needs a big win in FPS to prevent Microsoft from gobbling up companies like Activision, Blizzard and Id Software. Luckily, Sony has two legacy franchises waiting in the wings that can help it get out of this trouble.
Helgan forever
At a time when much of Sony’s brand is focused on AAA first-party games like The Last of Us, God of War, Horizon or Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, leaving out Killzone is a serious missed opportunity. More so than most other franchises, Killzone was synonymous with the PlayStation brand in the PS3 era, with the release of Killzone 2 in February 2009 being a milestone for a console that seriously struggled with quality exclusives in its first few years. Alongside Metal Gear Solid 4 and Uncharted 2, Killzone 2 helped change the reputation of the PS3 and ultimately made it a worthy competitor to the Xbox 360. That it was a sequel to a game that not being well received in the first place only made Killzone 2 even more remarkable.
The first Killzone was released on the PS2 in 2004, and despite a lot of pre-release hype as Sony’s potential answer to Halo, the game mixed reviews. It’s not a bad game by any means, but it’s a disappointing start for the franchise considering how compelling the world and visual design are. It often felt like a solid game with excellent presentation, including Brian Cox’s stellar vocal performance as Scolar Visari and Joris de Man’s iconic original score. But Killzone 2 showed that sometimes it’s worth taking a second chance at an idea that didn’t work perfectly the first time. spectacular reviews (including IGNs), and sell well over a million pieces worldwide in less than two months. The Killzone series would become one of Sony’s major franchises in the years that followed, with a PS3 sequel Killzone 3 launching in 2011 and one of the PS4’s 2013 launch titles being Killzone: Shadow Fall.
Now we know that Guerrilla Games is busy with Horizon these days, but Sony certainly has enough studios under its umbrella to let someone else take up the Killzone banner. The unique blend of hard sci-fi space opera, heavy FPS combat and ‘WWII in space’ aesthetic, coupled with the iconic designs of the Helghast troopers, hasn’t really been borrowed by other shooters on the market. A new game in the series could also finally pull the trigger on a story campaign from the Helghast perspective, something long-awaited by fans due to their sympathetic backstory. Considering Killzone’s importance to PlayStation console history, leaving out the PS5 seems like a huge, unforced error. Killzone 2 in particular is close to a masterpiece of sci-fi shooter design and deserves not only a modern facelift, but also a proper new entry to continue the saga. But it’s not the only Sony shooter series that warrants a resurrection.
Live the resistance
As previously mentioned, the PS3 struggled out of the starting blocks considering so few quality games were made for the console in its inaugural year. But of all the launch titles, the standout was Resistance: Fall of Man, an original FPS from Insomniac Games, better known for Ratchet & Clank and the recent Spider-Man series. While the multiplayer was boring, the single-player campaign was surprisingly meaty and could also be played in split-screen co-op (remember that?). What’s more, the story was fascinating – set in an alternate history where aliens called the Chimera invaded Earth in the 1950s – and Insomniac’s trademark out-of-the-box weapon design made for a great game that was more or less was lost in the cultural conversation as more anticipated games launched on the system.
Despite this, Resistance was a regular in the PS3’s franchise catalogue, with two direct sequels in Resistance 2 and 3 also released during the console’s life cycle. Unfortunately, the series saw a decline with the second game, which tried too hard to match the conventions of other shooters on the market, at the expense of its own personality. Not only did the first game’s collection of creative weapons fall short by forcing players to carry only two at a time instead of the entire arsenal, but the lackluster campaign was also littered with a series of disappointing boss battles that tended to be more to be scripted. sequences than dynamic battles. The multiplayer has been improved, but the story was weak compared to the previous entry.
Insomniac righted the ship with Resistance 3, which revisited much of what fans and developers alike loved about the series. In an interview with KotakuInsomniac CEO Ted Price said that all the changes in Resistance 2 “might not have been a good thing,” and that “in Resistance 3 we went back to some of our more traditional core mechanics that players loved, and then created a story that was more personal.” was… we’re really proud of Resistance 3.’ But that improvement didn’t translate into sales and the series flamed out with the third entry and the poorly received PlayStation Vita spin-off, Resistance: Burning Skies. But if Killzone has taught us anything, it’s that one misstep shouldn’t mean abandoning a good series, and that the alternate history world presented in Resistance is still full of creative possibilities. The unconventional arsenal of weapons could be a great way to spice up a multiplayer suite, and there are plenty of unseen eras or locations in the Resistance world that could be the focus of a new campaign like Insomniac or one of Sony’s other developers give it another try.
Sony has the resources to compete in the shooting world, such as long-dormant franchises like Killzone or Resistance, or developers known for shooters like Bungie. There are many opportunities to build first-person shooters on PlayStation, and games like Concord come from that need. We’ll see how Firewalk’s debut fares, but chasing the highs of other games that are already starting to age past their sell-by dates is rarely a winning strategy. Not that Sony shouldn’t try to cultivate new IPs, it absolutely should, but if it needs a competitive advantage it would be worth emphasizing the PlayStation brand values that are in fact specific to PlayStation. And reviving two major franchises in the genre you’re currently struggling with, that already have an established fan base and are already linked to your console? That would be a way to have that competitive advantage much sooner.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can track his fixations at Tweet.