It’s been well documented how many developers helped to shape the DualShock 4 controller you see today, with Guerrilla Games pushing Sony on the triggers, and originally being skeptical of the TouchPad, before taking advantage of it.
In an interview during the PS Blogcast, Lead Designer Eric Boltjes talked about the DualShock 4 and whether they had to redo Killzone: Shadow Fall’s settings to work with the new controller:
What was really interesting is that it was kind of the other way around – Sony approached us and kind of said, ‘Hey, if you were developing a controller, what would you change?’ And we, us as Guerrilla making first-person shooters, we went… ‘We want better triggers.’
So, like you said, previously the triggers were inward, and now they’re outward – that’s actually part of Guerrilla’s [feedback]. Same with the dead zones. We said, ‘We need to control the dead zones better, we need more control over that.’
Even when you grip the controller, you’ll notice as well that your fingers go straight towards the triggers more than they did before, that’s also [something we had a lot of influence on]. It was really cool working together with Sony… going, ‘Hey, we want to create a better control for all games,’ then them listening to us, and us listening to them. It was cool – a co-operative effort.
And it makes the game a lot better as well, that’s why I’m so happy about it.
If, however, you’d like to play around with the controls of Killzone: Shadow Fall a little bit, Eric confirmed there will be some options to choose from:
When we ship, there won’t be a lot of controller options… it sounds a bit arrogant, but we really felt like we kind of nailed the control scheme in a lot of ways. But you can switch [L1/R1 with L2/R2], you can invert to Y axis, all that kind of stuff.
But we’re going to listen to the community a little bit as well. [If they say], ‘We want specific abilities on different buttons’… we could release more control schemes later on, listening to what people want.
On top of this, Guerrilla Games will be supporting the game with free competitive maps, a Season Pass, and they’ll be listening to community feedback through Killzone.com via the forums and comments. Addressing their support for the title, Boltjes said, “We have a whole dedicated team – for a year and a half at least – that’s going to listen to the community and just plan more content.”
So, be sure to let Guerrilla Games know exactly what you like, or don’t like, about Killzone: Shadow Fall after the game launches on November 15th/29th.
