For those of you that watched GameTrailers TV last night, you know there is an upcoming map pack for Killzone 2 coming out later this month entitled “Steel and Titanium.”  An undercover reporter from SarcasticGamer.com was present when the interview between GameTrailers TV’s Geoff Keighley and Guerrilla Games’ Herman Hulst was taped at GDC and he points out that the interview we saw last night was only about a third of the actual interview that took place. Surprisingly, the “Steel and Titanium” map pack was originally intended to be the second map pack but the first one had to be delayed and will possibly be canceled completely.

Keep reading for more details from the interview…
Apparently the first map pack set to be released was called “Aluminum Siding and Plywood” and was set to take place in the makeshift family quarters camp occupied by the wives and children of the Helghast military.  In addition to simply providing new locations for multiplayer matches, the map pack also brought new dynamics to the game such as non-hostiles and special environmental features.  The environment itself would become a very real enemy for both the ISA and Helghast forces with wind able to pick up and destroy the housing units along with anything in their path.

Guerrilla Games was apparently very pleased with the progress they’d made on the map pack but focus testing in the Midwest region of the United States proved problematic.  Apparently the setting and simulation of deadly tornado-like wind storms didn’t sit well with people in regions that have to deal with similar conditions in real life, especially those that had lost loved ones to tornado strikes in trailer parks.  Host Geoff Keighley asked Guerrilla Games’ director Herman Hulst why they’ve decided to shelve the map pack for the time being.

At Guerrilla Games, we tried to envision a sort of ’shanty town’ as it were.  Not completely run down, yet not completely comfortable.  We tried to look at the environment of Helghan realistically and realized that tents certainly wouldn’t stand up to the elements, but the camps needed to be mobile.  Something akin to a modern day trailer home was what we settled on.

We already had the wind and weather elements in place and frankly never thought about the sensitivity issues some people might have.  After all, our game is ultimately based on the premise of kill or be killed so how would nature dealing its blows be any worse than that?  The executives at Sony ultimately made the call.  With the upcoming price drop, I mean… well… in the future, we expect the PS3 to become much more attractive to folks that might live in trailer parks and they didn’t want us to preemptively piss those people off.  That’s really the issue in a nutshell.

I have to say though, being in a massive battle and have a Helghan twister rip through a trailer park all around you is a site to see and hear.  Our sound team perfected a technique they’ve affectionately called ‘Tornaudio’ that simulates sound sources getting sucked into a twister with you in the vortex.  If you have a surround sound system, you’ve never heard anything like this.

Will we ever see “Aluminum Siding and Plywood” released to the public?  Will we ever get to experience the “tornaudio” tech?  Your guess is as good as mine, but I do know if I ever have to face a tornado in a trailer park, I’d prefer it to be in a video game!

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