Normally, the whole idea of keeping a franchise name is because previous installments have been successful, either commercially or in ratings. Killzone (PS2), though, is widely seen as medicore at best, and Killzone: Liberation on PSP is not much better. Both did not sell spectatularly.

One of the main things you hear people saying when trying to refute Killzone 2 is "Killzone 1 sucked so Killzone 2 will as well" which, while of course it wont be that way, it doesnt create the best perception of the game among people who dont know a whole lot about it.

If it had of been a seemingly knew IP (same game different name) that was getting all these wonderful previews, it would have got a whole bunch more people jumpin around, gears-of-war-esque.

personally i can not see any advantage to keeping the name killzone, though maybe someone else can point one out to me.

Deathzone 2

Gunzone 2

Dude wheres my explosion? 2

Big fucking guns 2

Hey we lied about that trailer, it was cgi 2

Hey hey hey thats just wrong... if they changed the name they wouldnt need the 2.

OT: i agree it probably would help, if the series had a diferent name, on the other hand its still the same developers so people would still judge the game based on how killzone was.

Killzone Liberation got a 9/10 from IGN, so it must be pretty good. The sales are pretty bad, but it's a shooter on PSP and those never do well. Plus, nobody's actually heard of it. It hasn't been advertised at all. It has absolutely nothing to do with the "Killzone" name.

They could have renamed it, but wouldn't people still see a similarity with the Helghast and everything? I doubt the name will hurt them too much if it's properly advertised with ads that properly show how awesome the game is.