Disclaimer: Rumor Killers is a speculative opinion piece and is by no means intended to disclose as fact whether a rumor is true or false - even though the Rumor Killers team are usually right (usually...)

Killzone 3 next year?

Somewhat predictably, strong rumors of a new Killzone game have finally emerged via a Official Playstation Magazine’s suggestion that Killzone 3 will be released in 2010. Few details were revealed by the article titled "The Secret Games of 2010", but it stated that "insider slips" revealed that Killzone 3 is deep in development, as well as suggestions that Resistance 3 may also emerge within the next year.

Killzone 2 was a fairly big success for the Playstation 3, reaching nearly 2 million units sold worldwide to date and becoming the fastest Sony-published title to reach 500,000 sales in the US. It was also the most expensive Dutch game ever developed, with Amsterdam-based Guerrilla Games using a budget of approximately $21 million. What do all these stats really mean? That the Killzone franchise is big business, so a new Killzone is of course extremely plausible.

Having said that, despite relatively good sales figures, Killzone 2 arguably failed to be the huge console seller that it should have been in the US. PlayStation 3 unit sales were approximately 276,000 in February 2009 when Killzone 2 was released, an increase of 73,000 from the previous month yet still lagging behind the Xbox 360’s 391,000 sales that month. By March, PS3 sales had declined to the more typical figure of 218,000. With the PS3 still looking for a game to truly shift it off shelves, Killzone 2 failed to set the world alight in the way Sony hoped it would.

Killzone 2 took almost 5 years to develop which may go some way to explaining why it wasn’t as huge as it should have been. That Killzone 2 took five years to develop makes the suggestion that Killzone 3 will be out a mere 18 months later very questionable. Is this actually possible to achieve? Presumably Killzone 3 would be using the same game engine as its predecessor and possibly the same multiplayer structure. But would this be to the detriment of the series? Would Killzone 3 be to Killzone 2 like ODST is to Halo 3, an extension of a similar concept rather than a truly new game in its own right?

Only a silly person would dismiss the chances of Killzone 3 arriving at some point in the future, it’s practically a certainty. Whether it will be released in 2010 or not is the quandary. Assuming there are no problems during development, which seems likely considering the Killzone 2 engine would surely be adapted for it, I can’t really see any reason why Killzone 3 won’t make an appearance in 2010. It may well be near the holiday season, so around the same time as Gears of War 3, but it’ll certainly make for an interesting console war around Christmas 2010. Get your pre-orders in now!

Jen’s Verdict: True