Eurogamer: Killzone 2 was a huge launch, with tremendous pressure from the press and community. Did you learn anything from it? Will the launch of 3 be similar?

Steven Ter Heide: Well, hopefully not exactly the same! Last time we had that infamous trailer - this time we're doing things properly - showing proper gameplay footage. We have a very vocal community, there's a lot of buzz around the internet.We keep a very close ear to the ground, to see what's out there and see what people think. We implemented a lot of the feedback from the community for Killzone 2, in the patches we applied for things like the controller lag. We're fixing those kind of things even further for Killzone 3 - we feel that responsiveness is a big issue. We can't really judge that on the pre-alpha code because the framerate's not up there, but response is important.

There's a lot of work going on to make sure the controls more responsive, as well as the button layout itself - we've got a lot of new features, like the jetpack, and obviously you need a button to control that. We also need to rethink the button layout, because that was also one of the complaints which people levelled at Killzone 2. People were used to a certain set-up, and Killzone 2 was different. So people were asking for something they were more comfortable with, for more options to configure it.

I think some of the other criticisms had to do with how seamlessly the game played - so any streaming hiccups during gameplay we want to get rid of completely - so much so that we want to completely get rid of any loading screens at all, even between the levels. So you can start up the game and play it right through to the end and never see a loading screen. You can see already, even in this build, that a lot of those problems, the little frame drops, are pretty much gone.

Another criticism was story, we need to improve on that end - we're working with a lot of Hollywood talent.

Eurogamer: There seems to be much less swearing this time!

Steven Ter Heide: (laughs) Yes! Our sound director is here today, we said to him, 'go through the entire database, and anything that's got 'sh**' or 'f***' in it, just get rid of it, we don't want to hear it ever again!

Eurogamer: Still an 18 though?

Steven Ter Heide: Yes, definitely. That's a lot to do with the violence though. Things like the brutal melee system, we're firmly aiming for an 18. But we feel that the dialogue which is in there shouldn't be gratuitous. It should be about advancing the story, natural responses. It shouldn't be this sort of off the scale swearing.

We've toned it down a little bit to make sure that the story comes across in the way we wanted it to come across. That's definitely one of the points we took on board from Killzone 2.

That said, Hulst noted that, contrary to popular belief, Guerrilla Games is not collaborating on engine technology with Uncharted 2 developer Naughty Dog.

Steven Ter Heide: In this level which we have on show today we have four distinct experiences, which was something we wanted to focus on in Killzone 3 as well. In Killzone 2, in was much more, well, I wouldn't say it was just one experience which you got, but it wasn't as varied as we wanted it to be. This time around we're introducing a lot more gameplay experiences, in this level you start on the intruder, shooting - which was something else people said about 2, you spend all this time on an intruder and you don't get to fire the gun - this time around you're allowed to do that.

Then there's the regular gameplay, where you get your combat rifle and off you go, you encounter the jetpack enemies, and then you get the jetpack, which opens up this whole new experience - all of a sudden you're able to jump around and do this aerial combat and reach new areas and have new routes open up. Then we introduce the big rocket launcher, this portable weapon of mass destruction, and suddenly you're able to take out tanks and vehicles really easily, that feels really powerful. So there's these really distinct experiences, even in the scope of a single level, and that's going to happen throughout the game. We want to keep the user experience really fresh.

Absolutely. The idea is that, not even going from level to level, but within individual levels, we'll be switching it up a lot more. I wouldn't say we'll be introducing a lot of colour because that's never been what Killzone is about, we've got this very distinct look, but we do want to get a lot more variety in the environments - so, different colour schemes, different things going on, throughout the game. Right at the beginning of the game, if you remember how Killzone 2 finished, on the steps of the Palace with the cruiser coming in, that's exactly where this game begins. It's completely seamless and continues on - so it starts in that nuked urban environment, the environments you played in Killzone 2, but since the bomb went off everything's changed. Then you're taken off on a journey, across the entire planet, basically.