To cut through the clutter of generic 'first person shooter' advertising online and engage with an active gaming community, we decided to provide gamers with a truly unique and interactive experience. Using actual assets and 3D models from the game to ensure authenticity we created the Killzone 2 webgame - the first ever Internet wide shoot 'em up. Registering at killzonewebgame.com allowed users to download a browser plug-in for either Firefox or Internet Explorer that turned the entire web into a virtual battleground with enemies from the game liable to strike at any time. Once attacked, the user's cursor turned into a crosshair allowing them to rid the internet of the hostile Helghast.
A competitive element and a squad play option allowing you to recruit your friends to play as a team and fight together in real-time, encouraged users to spread the webgame among their peers and ensure broader amplification of the campaign given the limited paid-for media support. Instead of using any paid-for advertising, the webgame was initially seeded to our primary hardcore gamer audience through non paid-for blogging channels before a paid-for viral seeding plan of the promotional video extended the reach of the campaign to a more mainstream gaming audience.
In just three weeks...
- Over 120k people visited the site (30k before any paid-for seeding started)
- Over 14k people registered to play the game and more than 80k battles were fought (25k battles before any paid-for seeding started)
- Our webgame video was seen by more than 250k people
Release Date
20th February 2009
Why we should win
Killzone 2 Webgame: the world's first internet wide shoot 'em up. A truly original and strikingly successful videogame launch.