Helghast Soldier in a PlayStation Move demo booth was the inspiration behind Sharpshooter
Inspiration can come from anywhere, at any time and at any place. The saying holds true when it comes to PlayStation’s Sharp Shooter peripheral. It turns out that the Sharp Shooter was actually a ‘side project’ for the game director of one of its premier exclusive titles: Killzone 3.
In the latest post on the official Killzone website, Victor Zuylen shared the entire inception and development process behind the accessory.
According to the post, Mathijis De Jonge, the Guerrilla Game Director was inspired by one of the many Helghast performers who were doing the rounds at a game convention.
De Jonge stated, “We were at a game convention where the Move was being demonstrated. We had several Helghast performers walking the show floor, and one of them decided to have a go at the Move demo booth.”
While inspired, the Game Director shared that at the time he felt something was missing.
“I could scarcely imagine him playing a game like Killzone that way,” said De Jonge. “He looked like he should be holding something resembling a weapon – something with a little oomph to it. A peripheral that not only played well, but looked cool at the same time.”
Killzone 3 was still in early development at that time, as the developers began experimenting with a peripheral that would house both, the Move controller, as well as the Navigation controller simultaneously.
According to Mathijis, the early prototypes were modelled on weapons in Killzone 2 with the STA-11 SMG the first in line. The developers like the idea of the player having to use both their hands in order to operate the Sharp Shooter to add a level of realism to it.
The photos showed that the earlier models were nothing more than pieces of plastic or foam that were taped together to hold the motion sensing controllers.
Various other features were added later on with help from the developers of SOCOM 4, in the form of Zipper Interactive who assisted Guerrilla games in the Sharp Shooters development.
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