Guerrilla recalls the controversy surrounding Killzone 2's E3 2005 trailer

Hermen Hulst, managing director for Guerrilla Games, has chatted with Gamasutra regarding the infamous Killzone 2 trailer which was shown during E3 2005, and said that because of the reception from the graphically astounding trailer for the time, the firm switched the game's development over from an intended release on PS2 to PS3 instead.

"After we completed Killzone 1 on PS2, for a good half-year or so, until early 2005, we had a PS2 game in development called Killzone 2," Hulst told Gamasutra. "What happened was that we had never anticipated that that trailer in 2005 would get that much traction. I mean, the whole world seemed to be talking about it, and at that point it just made more sense to scrap the work we had done for the PS2 version and work on the PS3.

"The hard part for us was like 'Uh-oh. Now we will actually have to make that!' But the good part is that that 2005 trailer shown at E3 created tremendous focus for the team.

"You had a graphical benchmark, but also the intensity of the combat shown, and frankly there was no way back from that. When you show something and shout about it to the outside world, you better live up to it. So the good part of that was that it gave us a lot of focus, and it acted as a kick start for the project."

To those who weren't around at the time or who may not recall, at E3 2005, Sony showed a trailer for Killzone 2, which to some looked as though it wasn't actual gameplay footage despite SCEA VP Jack Tretton stating it was "real gameplay everybody's seeing out there," to IGN at the time.

Later, it was revealed by a Guerrilla rep on the US PS forums that it was a render, which showed what was "possible on PS3," instead of actual gameplay footage which was eventually shown during E3 2007.

"Everyone else named the E3 2005 video for what it was - a target render of what we thought would be possible on the PS3," reported Eurogamer at the time. "Something we would be aiming for. Then, during E3 2007, in front of the majority of the gaming journalist press, we released a trailer of Pre-Alpha code running and demonstrated a playable Killzone 2 that stunned the industry."

Killzone 2 was released on PS3 in February 2009.