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I've been giving KZ4 a run and I'm a bit disappointed.

I love all the earlier games but I think 4 has departed from a lot of the style and atmosphere that makes the KZ games what they are. The graphics and settings are rendered beautifully but the environment themes are totally off. In the earlier games all of the action is concentrated on blasted environments and war torn areas that are usually choked with debris and damage. in KZ4 the game starts out in a wide open forest, then it moves into ISA territory which is an ultra sleek high tech looking setting with tons of glass, polished metal and lens flare. It looks very futuristic but it's nothing like the dystopian combat zones that populate the previous games.

The prison scene within Helgan territory is dark and moody but it's shipping container city and not a ruined warscape nor is it the toxic and polluted environment that drives the Helghast to all wear the re-breathers and filters. They still wear those simply to look the menacing bad guy role, but previously it was something that tied the character to their environment and added something to their designs rather than simply being "goon cool".

There's also a lot of elements that to me feel like they are lifted directly from dead space. Zero Gravity float environments, searching for power cores to unlock new areas or to power up access points. The prison escape and assassination mission are added stealth levels that play incredibly slow and don't offer any opportunity for action as you can't even knife the guards. You have to sneak around and avoid action more like you're playing a weird version of Tenchu or Assassin's Creed minus any killing.

It's almost like the the guys spearheading the game design took a look at every top selling game out there that wasn't killzone and decided hey we need to puts these elements into the game and turned their back on all of the signature elements that made the first 3 games so awesome.

It's really disappointing to me as Killzone is one of the primary reasons I picked up the PS4. The system itself is great but Shadowfall comes up very short compared to the overall KZ franchise which is amazing in games 1-3.

To be fair, Killzone: Shadow Fall takes place on Vekta and what amounts to a "Helghast slum" on Vekta. The latter half of the game is back to Helghan though.

Killzone 2+3 took place on Helghan and the space around Helghan.
The original Killzone took place on Vekta as well, just in the swamps/middle of a war.

Style over substance, basically. All the environments and the enemies looked nice but the basic level design and the AI were downright awful a lot of the time.

I appreciate that they tried to diversify the mechanics and the types of approach you took to missions but the result is a complete lack of focus. It constantly switches from open levels to more linear ones. I don't know if it was an attempt to showcase the capabilities of the hardware or a real attempt to avoid falling into the modern FPS trap, but regardless I don't think it worked.

The scenery for Vekta is well done, and I totally get that it's on a different planet. But it's still a very large visual break from the style of environments the previous games use.

Sorta like having a series of films like Sin City shot in grainy black and white with an intentional noir style, but then switching to full color HD for the 4th installment. With all the bright shiny and lens flares in KZ4 it distinctly clashes with the intentionally subdued and muted color palettes that were established in previous games. They obviously wanted to show off the strengths of the new rendering engine and did well with it on a technical end, but thematically it really takes it outside the established core imagery.

I see it being a lot like the newer Star Wars trilogy, where Lucas was so engrossed with trying to dazzle the audience with amazing visuals that he forgot the core of what made the original movies so great. The game is flashy and great looking but it rings hollow when trying to project the same KZ feel.

Well, sadly it's not that surprising as it was a launch title, which is often amongst the weakest games of a console's line-up in it's lifetime. As iproxtaco suggested, it's likely it was more of a game to demonstrate the graphical capabilities of the console than a truly polished one similar to Knack though with a bit more substance, particularly in multiplayer.

Also you have to understand that they're trying to restart the setting in a sense for newcomers that don't know much of the previous trilogy and make it more accessible in that sense so it fits more with the Cold-War esque conflict and tension compared to the outright war of Killzone. Whether they'll actually make improve upon the failings of Shadow Fall and make the setting more immersive and less shallow is something we'll only be able to hope for.

I only got to put a couple hours into it, but I actually really liked it. The combat was smooth, the little drone you get was pretty cool. The only part I played was all in the woods you talked about, and there was a little of sneaking. Like others said, it was a beautiful game, and I though the woods were a nice breath of fresh air; it reminded me of the park in the first Killzone.

Hopefully I'll get to play more soon!