In a surprising turn for an FPS title, Guerrilla Games has announced that the upcoming Killzone Shadow Fall will lack any kind of experienced based multiplayer progression. In its place will be a challenge based system where completing certain sub-objectives will allow for points to be added to a player’s rank. This will in turn reward weapon attachments, ability enhancements and similar upgrades normally seen in these games.

Many of these challenges will vary in difficulty and the specific circumstances required to achieve them. The two examples the developer cited were “Destroy 1 Turret” for an easy, straight forwards challenge, with a more difficult task being “Kill 1 enemy player with Laser Tripmine while they are carrying a Beacon.” It was not made clear if these were actual examples from Shadow Fall or not.

While not a massive leap away from the usual XP based progression found in modern FPS titles, it is a sign of some innovation on the part of the developer. Something which could make playing the title stand out more from the crowd and ranking up a more skilful task for players to complete.

Along with this, Guerrilla has revealed a number of other elements which will be a key part of multiplayer.

Temporary bonuses known as Combat Honours will be a earned through achieving a certain number of points per round. These will be lost once a session is completed and a player quits, only remaining for as long as they are in the game. While it has been confirmed they will be stackable, no examples of what these will allow a player to do were detailed by the developer. Furthermore the shields shown in the Gamescon trailer will be a part of multiplayer and will allow players to “block enemy attacks while allowing allied projectiles through.” These would need to be disabled by EMP weapons but what they meant exactly to individual classes will only be revealed at a later date.

Bots will be available within the game and will be used to keep numbers on opposing teams even or to replace players missing. Guerrilla stated that players will be able to “even add bots to only one faction, to allow for ‘Bots vs. Humans type Warzones.” Furthermore that players would be able to go solo against them in offline mode, without access to Challenges.

Finally, one unfortunate detail is that the game will launch without Exoskeletons or Jetpacks as equipment as they add too many variables for the developer to account for. With luck we might see them added sometime after launch.

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