14 DAY TRIAL // The Black Hand forces in the upcoming Killzone: Shadow Fall first-person shooter for the PlayStation 4 will have a different design that's meant to reflect the evolution of the Helghast forces after the events from Killzone 3, when their home planet met its demise.
The Killzone saga has always been represented by its enemies, the Helghast, who've been fighting a bitter war with the Vektans for many years across different games.
After Killzone 3, which saw the destruction of Helghan, remaining Helghast forces have sought refuge with their enemies, the Vektans, and have formed a special city that's the main location of Killzone: Shadow Fall.
In order to reflect these events, developer Guerrilla Games has tweaked the design of the main enemies – the Black Hand.
"We’re dealing with the universe-changing consequences of the demise of planet Helghan, plus the jump in time between Killzone 3 and Killzone Shadow Fall. We’d already started to see the Helghast fragment in Killzone 3 after Scolar Visari’s death, and the loss of their home and a vast part of their population only furthered this," the studio's Dan Calvert told PS blog.
"The Helghast maintain their identity and their ideals, but their goals are now splintered. The Black Hand are the most divergent Helghast subfaction we see in Shadow Fall; they’re not a regular army, and they don’t use conventional warfare tactics. They’re infiltrators, not invaders."
The studio as a whole also wanted to make the characters in Shadow Fall more diverse-looking and show that enemies are no longer part of a single army, but come from multiple backgrounds.
"From a design standpoint, increasing the diversity between the characters was a clear choice we made from the start. Instead of constraining ourselves to the Helghast military, we expanded the range of enemies to different groups, from security to the military to special ops and the Black Hand," Guerrilla's Roy Postma said.
"This allowed us to create a unique and distinct basis for each group, which we finished off with the typical Helghast details to ensure no-one would mistake them for friendly forces."
Killzone: Shadow Fall launches alongside the PlayStation 4 in November.