Guerrilla Games

Knights [GameBoy Color – Cancelled]

Prior to their acquisition by Sony and going on to create the Killzone seriesGuerrilla Games was a small development team based in Amsterdam, then known as Lost Boys Games; a subsidiary of Dutch multimedia conglomerate, Lost Boys. One of Lost Boys Games’ internal teams was dubbed ‘Formula‘. This group was dedicated to handheld games, responsible for producing titles such as Rhino Rumble, and Tiny Toon Adventures: Dizzy’s Candy Quest for GameBoy Color. One of their most interesting GBC projects, in development in around 1999-2000, was called Knights.

Knights was an action brawler with a style of gameplay comparable to a blend of Bomberman and Gauntlet, in which players would have had to fight against 3 other knights in 50 different arenas riddled with traps, enemies, and various NPC’s. This excerpt from an old IGN preview offers us further insight:

Each knight is colored differently, and the great challenge of the game is to strike down the knights in a predetermined order while protecting your own flank. Strike a defender before he becomes an official target, and the imperial judges will punish you with a penalty point.

Knights GameBoy Color Formula Lost Boys Games (1)

It’s interesting to note that Knights GBC was based around the gameplay of another cancelled Knights project that was planned by Digital Infinity for PC and Dreamcast, before they merged with Lost Boys in 1999. Later, the original Knights for PC and Dreamcast was changed from a multiplayer brawler to a single player action platformer and ported to Playstation 2, but that version was also canned. In 2003, Lost Boys Games was sold to Media Republic and renamed to Guerrilla Games. Their Knight projects were thus never finished, as they began to work on the first Killzone for PS2, and Shellshock: Nam ’67 for PS2, Xbox, and PC.

Only a few screenshots remain from Knights for GameBoy Color, as the title was soon cancelled for unknown reasons. We tried to get in contact with former Formula Games / Lost Boys developers, in an attempt to unearth more on  this unreleased game, but unfortunately, they were not available for comment. If you know someone that worked at Formula Games, let us know!

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Killzone (Kin) [PSX PS2 – Beta / Target Render]

Killzone is a FPS developed by Guerrilla Games (known as Lost Boys before) and released in 2004 for the PlayStation 2. It seems that the project was originally planned to be a Playstation 1 shooter titled “Kin”, but after Sony saw their tech demo in 1999, they asked to Guerrilla to switch it to the new console. Below you can see the original Kin / Killzone pitch video, that Lost Boys created 5 years before the final release. This footage was shown at the GDC Europe in August 2010 during a keynote by Hermen Hulst, Managing Director of Guerilla Games. As you can notice, the game and the characters looked a lot different, but we are not sure if the video was still related to the PSX project or it was already changed into a PS2 title.

Thanks to Unclejun for the video (from the Killzone Collector’s Edition) and to Killzone for the link to the GDC Europe article!

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Killzone 2 [PS3 – Beta]

Killzone 2 is a FPS for the PlayStation 3, developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. As we can see in a very early Killzone 2 multiplayer video from 2006 , the beta version had tons of changes from the final game. Some of the changes include very early maps with differed layouts and themes.

The m80 has a red dot sight and a grenade launcher, the Helghan weapons have white muzzle flashes as in the first game. The way you see your gun in your hands is different and the graphics are nowhere near as polished. It appears that classes haven’t been implemented into the game yet and both sides only have 1 character model. Probaly the biggest and most noticeable difference is that there are drivable vehicles, which are not available in the final games multiplayer.

Thanks to Earthwormjim for the contribution!

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