Killzone: Shadow Fall

The digital future is reportedly right around the corner, but you’re going to need a connection faster than a supercharged Concorde to take advantage of it. Chatting with Eurogamer.net, SCEUK’s managing director Fergal Gara has hinted that Killzone: Shadow Fall will consume around 50GBs of your PlayStation 4’s brand spanking hard-drive disk. Ouch.

Quizzed about the future of digital downloads, the executive explained that the delivery mechanism is on the cusp of snowballing in popularity. “First of all, [digital] is definitely going to grow as a means of consumption,” he said. “And there are big innovations in the PS4 to make it more attractive and easier gamer-wise to want to download.”

The ‘Play as you Download’ functionality built into the next generation console is a good example of this, as it will allow you to actually experience content as it’s being pulled from the PlayStation Network. The problem, Gara notes, is that file sizes are escalating dramatically. “Killzone: Shadow Fall is an uber file – I think it’s cracking on for 50GB,” he exclaimed. “It looks it, too, when you see it.”

Candid as always, the gaffer was keen to note that even with the simultaneous download feature, the procedure will still be “relatively tedious” on the PS4. “It's not perfect; it's not seamless,” he explained, adding that the digital files need to go through additional testing in order to ensure that they operate correctly.

Despite all of this, though, Gara reckons that we will see some massive improvements over the PlayStation 3. “The network will perform better on multiple levels, because it becomes not just a sales or gaming delivery [platform] but increasingly it becomes a social network,” he added. “So it's got to be a compelling experience on multiple levels.”

He concluded: “It's going to be for no lack of investment, for no lack of effort, and no lack of intention that things might fall a bit short. But we're definitely moving in the right direction.” The company’s going to have to as well, as it can no longer fall back on the fact that the PSN is free to make up for its shortcomings.

[source eurogamer.net]