Killzone 2 nearly saw on-rails Move port

A Move-friendly on-rails version of Killzone 2 very nearly came into being, developer Guerrilla Games has revealed.

In a interview with Ars Technica, lead programmer Tommy de Roos recalled some of Guerrilla's first experiments with the Move peripheral while discussing how the studio implemented motion controls in Killzone 3.

"When we got the initial [Move] prototypes, we had no set plan on how to add motion control to Killzone. Being a first-party Sony studio, we had little experience in that area except for some small experiments with the SixAxis controller," he explained.

"This was an opportunity to make the game more accessible to players who have trouble playing games with a standard controller, and to give fans of the series a little something extra to play with."

"One of the first ideas was to create an on-rails version of Killzone 2," he added. "But once we realised how much work that would be, since all encounters would have to be re-scripted, we decided against it."

Much iteration followed, with Killzone 3's integrated Move controls the eventual outcome.

In his 8/10 review of the game, Eurogamer's Dan Whitehead heaped measured praise on the studio's efforts.

"Move gameplay is more of an acquired taste, proving to be surprisingly precise and intuitive during normal movement and gunplay with varying levels of automatic target lock," he wrote.

"It only shows its limitations when the single-player starts getting all vehicular, and judged as a showcase of how motion control can work in a hardcore FPS environment, it sets a high standard."

Publisher Sony certainly seems happy with the outcome, encouraging Guerrilla to share its expertise with other developers.

"We've already been contacted by several studios," de Roos revealed. "And I guess most studios will learn from this the same way as we did: analyze it and try to come up with better ideas to improve upon it. I certainly think that there is still a lot of progress to be made in this area."

You can find out for yourself how well Move controls have been incorporated in Killzone 3 when the game goes on sale for PlayStation 3 on 25th February.