Killzone Breaks Dutch Budget Records

A report in Dutch newspaper de Volksrant claims that the development budget for Killzone on the PlayStation 3 will make the game the most expensive media project ever in the Netherlands. As reported by various Dutch websites including Ownage.nl, the budget for Killzone is estimated to be even more than the €16 million ($21.0m) cost of the forthcoming World War II movie Zwartboek (Black Book) from RoboCop director Paul Verhoeven – the most costly movie ever made in the Netherlands. A specific figure for the game’s budget is not given, although Dutch developer Guerilla is said to currently have one hundred and twenty staff working on the game. This is three times the amount needed for the original PlayStation 2 game, with half of the team being from outside the Netherlands - an increase from the one third employed on the first game. Rising development costs in areas such as art assets and localization are blamed for the ballooning budget. Little additional information is given on the status of the game, which has no release date and has not been seen in public since the infamous teaser trailer shown at E3 2005. However, Phil Harrison recently indicated that further footage will be show in the New Year. The only other news from the de Volksrant report is that extra downloadable content is already being planned for the game, with new “chapters” being prepared for the game. Whether this implies anything about the initial length of the game, compared to traditional current generation titles, is unclear.