Killzone Shadow Fall Notes

I choose to start a new game on Normal difficulty.

In a terrible past war a weapon called terracide was used to reduce the planet Helghan to a lifeless rock. The survivors were given refuge on Vekta by the guilty Vektans. They have come to occupy half the planet with a wall dividing the two. The game starts in the Helgan section, Vektans are being expelled from the area as political tensions rise.
A small boy looks out of the window as people are herded around by soldiers outside. His father appears and tells him that it is time to leave. I have to follow him. The door of the apartment is hammered on and I have to follow the dad over the balcony. I follow him, hiding in the shadows from drones. We meet up with a Vektan soldier, then have to hide as a Helghan patrol sweeps the area. The soldiers is called Sinclair, he will help us get to the wall. I have to climb up onto a roof to get through a hole and clear a plank away from a blocked door. Sinclair climbs up onto a roof to scout ahead. The father climbs up and I have to grab his hand. As I do, he is shot and we both fall back onto the lower area. Helghan appear. The father tells his son to stay behind him. The father is shot before Sinclair can appear behind the Helghast and kill them. Sinclair tells him that he will get him to safety.

Flash forward in time and Lucas the son is older and trained as a soldier. We see Sinclair, older now, talking about taking the territory on the other side of the wall back. Then we see Lucas as a prisoner of the Helghan. As a shadow marshal he is taking part in missions behind enemy lines. The Helghast are trading him for a female Helghan prisoner, this quickly goes wrong the Vektan officer doing the trade is shot. Then a missile blows up nearby knocking everyone off their feet. I have to grab a gun and shoot a Helghast guard using quick-time button presses. Then the female prisoner grabs the gun and leaves us behind. We are rescued and make it to safety.

The scene changes to a Vektan city, all clean lines and glass skyscrapers. Lucas is in an office, Sinclair is with him. Lucas was captured on purpose, the woman traded was named Echo. Political tensions are high and the Helghast leader Visari is breaking off negotiations. Sinclair tells us that a recon team have been sent through the wall. Contact with them has been lost. Lucas has to go in and find out what happened to them.

Mission 2
I have to go through a factory to get into the area. I climb through some tunnels and am told to find my echo package. I have to do a little bit of platforming and take a lift through the area. I now find some enemies which I have to sneak up to and melee kill. I move outside and find two Helghast looking at my package. It opens up and a drone pops out and kills them for me. This is my owl, a drone that can attack people for us, we can also use it to shoot by remote. It can hack things for us as well. I have to send it down to attack two soldiers. The owl can also produce a zip line for us to use. I explore this new massive open area of forestry with fortified buildings dotted around. The mission requires me to go to a column of smoke, which seems to indicate where the team we are trying to find may be. When you are shot and killed the owl can revive you if you have an adrenaline pack. Otherwise it's back a little bit to the checkpoint. I find that the drop ship the six man team was in has been shot down. Three of the men are dead. I find the other three nearby. They have the intelligence which their mission was based on. I now have to take out weapon emplacements that are preventing our escape. I have to set charges on the wrecked ship to destroy it. Then take out AA guns. I climb up the side of a mountain and plant c4 on the guns. There are enemies to kill all the way. I then have to go to a comms tower and hack two terminals. Then meet the team at the armory and get out. The armory I have already cleared out, and you guessed it the soldiers have re-spawned. I storm in and then have to hack a terminal. As we are about to get in the drop ship enemies attack making it withdraw. I have to defend against waves of enemies. Once enough have been killed I then have to make it to the drop ship. The mission ends here with the c4 being blown and half the area going up.

Back with Sinclair in his office he tells us about a Vektan spaceship called the Cassandra which has sent a distress beacon. It seems that a virus pathogen has killed the crew. This may not be natural, especially considering that the ship was involved with bio-weapon research. The project leader, Massar appears to be trying to defect. I have to go to the Cassandra and destroy it by steering it into the sun.

Mission 2
I start by cutting into the ship's airlock. I am weightless in zero gravity. The ship looks dead. There are bodies floating around inside. I restart the artificial gravity and am now walking around normally. Inside the ship are lots of dead bodies, some laid out neatly under sheets, some lying on gurney's. I move along the corridor, past sealed labs. Then come out into a large central shaft of the ship. I am weightless again. There are two doors and two objectives at either end of the shaft, top and bottom. One to get the engines running, the other to set course for the sun. I choose to go for the engines first. Inside this part of the ship gravity is restored. I meet some Helghast soldiers, who aren't friendly. I come to a petrusite core which is plugged into a hole, removing it opens a door. It appears that I can pick up the core and drop it at will. I come to a control panel and have to get the owl to hack it. This allows me into the core, I have to replace petrusite cores into three locations to get the engines running. As I being moving cores and placing them where they should be as marked the concentric rings begin to spin. Making the place a deathtrap. Once all cores are placed I must make my way back out to the control room and hack the console to activate the engines properly. I am told to make my way to the control room and set course for the sun next. More Helghast appear to fight. I kill them then make my way back up the shaft to the steering section. Flying owls appear and attack. I find a room where bodies are burning. I have to use the cores like keys now. To open doors. I have to find three to open the way to the bridge. I climb through a shaft and spider robots attack. I reach the bridge and find it empty, I use the owl to make the ship head into the sun by hacking a control console. I hear Massar's voice over the radio, she is still aboard somewhere. I am told to get to the labs and find her. Helghast are in my way as i take a different route back to the main shaft. In the labs area a door that was locked earlier is now open. I see a video of Massar killing a Helghan male to test her bacterial weapon. inside the lab I am prompted to examine a body under a sheet on the table. As i do the Helghan woman, the one we were exchanged for earlier in the game appears and holds a gun to our head. She appears appalled at what the Vektan's are up to. She accuses us of coming to bury the truth when we tell her that we are here to destroy it. She tells us that Massar will answer for her crimes. I have to fight her with quick-time, she escapes.  I have to chase her now, there are windows nearby and the sun light is so strong that it sets things on fire where the light hits. I chase through the ship fighting as I go until I reach the escape pods. I am too late the Helghast escape with Massar. I am blown out into space and can only watch as a large Helghan ship leaves. On the ship the Helghan woman has Massar prisoner. Massar taunts her, asking how much of her blood is Vektan, she guess at maybe half. The Helghan woman is not impressed. Massar tells her that they are all going to die. Back with our hero floating in space, he is picked up by a Vektan ship.

Mission 3
Kellan is on a small ship in the Vektan city. He lands on a rooftop landing pad and I have to walk through a security checkpoint towards the interior of the building. There are lots of civilians here milling around also. As I walk an explosion suddenly knocks Kellan off his feet. A soldiers rushes to the aid of a hurt woman, only to be shot by another Vektan. It turns out to be a Helghast wearing a holographic disguise. He comes for Kellan who stabs him with a knife. I am now fighting against Helgahst who are streaming out from inside the building. I have to go inside, fighting all the way to a control console where I can communicate with Sinclair. There have been multiple strikes across the city. He wants me to  come to him. I head back outside, the way I came in and find lots of Vektan's clearing up and tending the wounded. I meet Sinclair outside and get into a drop-ship with him. A video from the Helghan tells us that the Black Hand are responsible, an extreme Helghan terror group. Reports start to come in that they have hijacked trains on a monorail system and are using them to ram buildings causing much death and destruction. We have to go to the train station and halt the trains.
I am dropped off on the tracks. I have to avoid being hit by the very regular and fast moving trains. I fight my way across the tracks to a stationary train and go inside. It is crawling with Helghast. I hack a panel which disables the train I am in. I now have to go on into the station. I have to climb up ladders then get into the roof of a train and down inside it to hack a second train. Then again, more climbing and train dodging while shooting Helghast until I reach the last train. It is filled with lots of explosives. There is only sixty seconds left until it blows. I can't defuse it. I jump back out to Sinclair on the drop-ship. He tells me to shoot the train off the rails with a mini-gun. I shoot the five or so hooks that hold it on the rail and it falls off. We are now going after Tyran, the Black Hand leader. He is in the Vektan city, he has been seen and is being pinned down in a building nearby. I am sent in to kill him. There are hostages in the broadcast room, this is where Tyran has been sending his video from. I have to free the hostages. I go in through a vent. I am told to try freeing the hostages stealthily, though it all goes wrong quickly the allies storm in and clear the place the old fashioned way. I still find and save the hostages, freeing them from handcuffs. I am then looking for Tyran. I go after him and find him. He runs and I give chase. I reach a cut scene where he gets onto a drop-ship and I hang onto it as it escapes by a rope. I have to shoot soldiers who are trying to shoot me from the drop-ship, then climb up the rope. I get to the drop ship and fight Tyran in cut-scene, he knocks me off and gets away.

Mission 4
I am going back into the Helghan sector, looking for Tyran. A contact there will help, I have to meet him. I start in a queue of refugees, moving through a checkpoint. Some get through others are rejected and taken away. I get through. The Helghan sector is unrelentingly bleak and industrial. It looks like hundreds of cargo containers per minute are being shot up into orbit via some kind of gravity lift. I board a train and while in the carriage am told to detonate an EMP device. I do this and the train stops. People flee and the soldier who was in the carriage has to be melee killed. I get his gun and escape the carriage. I move down through the shanty town and find a guard post and take out the guards. I move through into a large area which is filled with civilians. I can make my way towards the objective marker undisturbed. Our contact has had to move position. I am given his coordinates and told to hurry. I find the contact, whose name is Zeus, in a hideaway in the vent system. He tells us to help ourselves to his gear. He also asks that we erase his name from a database so he can escape the Helghan sector more easily. He tells us where Tyran can be located. I fight on through the city, and come to an elevator. The lift goes down for a while and I come out into a boxy series of skyscraper like industrial buildings.  I move on here for a while with little resistance. I hear Tryan telling people that there is a shadow marshal looking for him and that he wants us dead. I fight through some more enemies and then another lift ride. Tryan rants over the radio, telling Kellan about his own past. I fight through another large area and come to a crane. I move the crane and this opens the way forward. I have to move the crane around a few times and zip line about to get to the next area. Here I fight some more and come to a door. Inside I hack a computer and then climb up a ladder and find Tryan talking to someone via video link. It seems that this person is on Helghan, and he is in control of Massar, who is working to eliminate a different race now. I fight Tyran in quick-time and he knocks us out of the room, which seems to  blow up. Kellan comes around and reports to Sinclair, I now have to get to the extraction point. The gantries have been blown out, I have to make my way through the wreckage. There is no escape and Helghan forces are closing in. There  is nowhere left to go and Kellan is captured. I wake with a bag over my head and one of the Helghan torturing Kellan with a shock stick. He leaves and the girl appears, the half Vektan/Helghan woman who has been popping up all along. She tells Kellan that Tryan was acting on his own political ends, the Visari regime did not want the attack on the Vektan side of the wall. Kellan tells her that Stahl is doing this, he is on Helghan with Massar. As they speak, Lady Visari appears, flanked by guards. It seems that she knows exactly what Stahl is up to, it is revealed that the girl is Visari's daughter. Lady Visari sends her away forcibly and leaves us to the torturer.

Mission 5
Kellan wakes in a small container. An unknown voice on the radio tells him to get out of the container. The door opens and Kellan is in a cargo container filled area. I have to jump out and over some containers, the anonymous benefactor moves them to aid us. I then have to go on a journey through the guts of the cargo yard. I am guided by the voice and told when to move and when to stay still to avoid patrols. I eventually come to an area where two guards corner me. The unknown Visari girls is the benefactor. She kills them then tells me to follow her. She wants peace, though from her side it is inevitable that the Vektans will attack, not the other way around. She takes me on a lift to a new area where she shows me how to hack spider-bots, which I can then drive around and blow up. I use this to open a door. I can also mark targets for her to shoot with her sniper rifle. I come to an open area where there are plenty of targets to get Echo, which seems to be her name, to shoot. I also have to use a spider-bot to extend a bridge to open the way forward. I then help a civilian being hassled by guards and he gives me better weapons. I climb up out of this area, which isn't immediately obvious. I then get into a vent and move onto another large open area. I have to clear the enemies using Echo and take out what I can myself. I have to activate a panel in what is called a containment centre, then open an airlock type door. Echo tells us that she will meet us on the other side. I pass through an area filled with despondent starving and ill civilians. I intervene and stop one killing himself and give another an adrenaline pack. I move out into a large open area and fight my way across with Echo's help. She brings down a cargo container on some enemy heads. A large drone appears. I need to use EMP grenades to take it down. When the EMP grenade hits it it is stunned and I can get in some shots. Rinse and repeat about four times and it goes down. I now have to head to an elevator. There are groups of enemies on it and two have large riot shields. I kill them and take the elevator. Echo and Kellan discuss changing the minds of the politicians above them who seem hell bent of killing everyone. I have to use a spider to hack a door open. I meet Echo on top of a building. The last stretch is heavily guarded. She gives us her sniper rifle and tells us to cover her as she tries to open the way forward. I have snipe a spotlight, cameras and soldiers so that she can get to the controls and move the container over to us. I am told to get inside it. I then shoot some more soldiers and climb back out onto the top of another container that Echo has moved over. We both now ride this container to a new area. I give her the sniper rifle back here. We must now get into a control room in a tower at the end of this new area. I sneak around sniping and stealth killing for a while and then end up getting seen and having to fight my way in. I get to the control room and Echo follows me in. She tells me that we need to get a capacitor and from a machine at the back of the control room and take it outside and plug it into a nearby antenna. Now I must survive a huge attack. There are large drones in groups of two and three and many soldiers. On our side we have two flying drones, which i can designate targets for. Once enough death has occurred I have to go and meet Echo as the enemy retreat. She tells me that she is going to fly me over the wall. I must convince Sinclair to give her 48 hours. She is going to kill Massar and stop Stahl's plans. The drone flies over the wall. It crashes when the uplink fails and we land in the no mans land between the walls. I have to run, avoiding drones in the area and get into the doors of the Vektan side of the wall. I am met by a drop-ship and taken to Sinclair.

Mission 6
Sinclair doesn't take well to trusting Echo to kill Massar, he sends us to do it also. They have tracked Massar to a mining spire in Helghan orbit. I find myself floating in space trying to find my way inside. I fly towards a designated point. I then move inside and make my way to a large shaft. I have to free fall down it avoiding girders. This seems to have glitches, as I can't seem to see what to do when I land. A flare fires and an airbag appears at the last moment only once, though once is enough. I did this perfectly around ten times before it worked though. On the lower surface I move down further into the shaft machinery. I find spider robot releasing boxes. These spawn around four spiders at a time, they can be hacked to stop their production with the owl. A door needs to be hacked, there is a single soldiers in this room, he appear to have a shield of some sort. The owls stun ability knocks out their shields. This adds a new dynamic to game-play as you have to manage the owl so that you can take their shields down. a large room full of guards tests this new mechanic out. An optional objective here is to access the security room. I then have to open a hatch. This opens a huge hatch in the previous room, which I must now go down. A drone meets us and I have to shoot it. I hack a panel and open the way. Massar's voice can be heard over the radio. I now have to find her in this massive lab complex. There are lots of enemies to shoot on the way as you would expect. I eventually find the door to her lab and hack it open. Inside Massar reveals that she's cardboard cut out nuts and thinks that viruses or whatever she is making are being held back by our life and we all need to die so they can evolve. Hence her interest in making biological weapons that can kill everything in sight. The weapon has been moved down to the surface. Stahl has it. Massar is now no longer of use and a danger to the Helghast. Stahl sends men to kill her rather than let Vekta take her back. She runs to a shuttle and it moves off, leaving Kellan in a lab that is filling with enemy soldiers. I have to breach the window using C4 and float out into space. Here I must escort the shuttle as it moves between two space stations. drones and other shuttles sent to collide must be dealt with. I must then cycle the airlock and meet Massar. She wants a lab to carry on, totally nuts. I follow her, there doesn't seem to be much else to do. Massar is making a good case for us to just shoot her. She claims that she won't give us a cure or stop the plague. I follow her into a massive room. I take Massar into a room at the far end. Here Vektan soldiers meet us and take Massar. A ship is coming in to collect her. I must hold off the Helghast who are coming in big numbers. I join some men making a stand and have to survive until the ship arrives. When it does I get onto it's emplaced gun and must keep it protected. The Helghast eventually fall back. In cut scene I see a Vektan with Massar and Echo appears behind them. Sinclair tells Kellan to kill Echo. Echo shoots Massar and the sergeant holding her. Sinclair tells us that we are a traitor. Kellan tells him that he has made his choice and genocide of the Helghan race isn't it. It looks like Echo and Kellan are the only ones who want peace and they are now in a side of their own making.

Mission 7
Echo tells us that weapon is on a drop-ship. We are going to follow it down using orbital divers, which look like sleds that the pair use to ride through the atmosphere after the drop-ship. After a certain height they abandon the sleds and are free falling.
After clearing the clouds we are free falling at high speed over the broken surface of Helghan. Cities in ruins loom quickly up at you. The control scheme here is weird, you have to push forward to keep height, which also makes it hard to see where you are going. I eventually manage to hit the landing site, though it was luck rather than skill. There are air brakes, which don't seem to help any as they lose you height. On the ground I climb down through a fallen skyscraper and meet Echo. She tells me to put a canister into a machine and then step back and shoot it. This makes a gravity lift of sorts for us to get up to the next area. We split up to make us harder to find and I have to do a gravity machine on my own. I then meet an automated defense robot, in defense of what may I ask, the ruins? I got stuck in some rubble here and needed to restart the last checkpoint.
The robot tank like machine must be taken out, yet gunfire and c4 aren't making a dent. I have to use two of the canisters in two gravity machines which knocks it out for me. Two drones join the fun after you hit it with the first gravity blast. I move on through the ruins, avoiding an elevator that falls and half of a building that falls down as you enter a room. I then find more of the stationary tank droids. I must do the same, hit it with two gravity blasts. I move though a wrecked building and come out at the drop-ship crash site. Tyran is alive, some Helghast have arrived and rescued him. Another tank and two larger spider drones need to be dealt with. I then meet up with Echo. A  massive ship passes overhead, causing tremors. I have to follow Echo to a large cliff edge.

Mission 8
Using a scope we see a base down below, Tyran is there, this is likely the site of the weapon. We are to split up and both attack from different approaches. I move around the cliff side and approach the base. There are soldiers, two emplaced guns and one of the tank droids blocking the entrance. I have to place c4 on two points to blow this tank droid. Echo tells me to keep them off her while she finds a way in. I kill a few Helgast and then she opens the main doors. Inside is a large empty room. I have to open a door with Echo, There is a rail track here, I have to clear the guards and Echo hacks the trains to bring a container here. We then ride it to Tryan's location. The ride proves illuminating. There are hundreds of large ships, a war fleet. The virus isn't the only way that the Helghan's have been planning revenge. I arrive at the other end of the station and have to fight through heavy soldier numbers. We come to a control room and Echo needs us to cover her until she does something. Survive the waves mode in other words.
I am then told to hack doors to stop the troops coming into the area, two doors need to be hacked. Once done Echo hacks in and tells us that Tyran is coming this way and we can set up an ambush. we ambush him, though he knows we are there. I now must fight one on one with Tyran. He has a shield drone, which bathes him in shield. He can also summon spiders and small flying owl like drones that shoot and ram us. He takes a fair bit of pounding, though goes down relatively easily. He is useless when questioned and Echo shoots him dead. Sinclair still won't back down in the face of the overwhelming new odds. Echo wants to go after Stahl. we are now heading to a small drop ship nearby. In cut scene the drop-ship flies out of the canyon filled with the armada. We see lots of Helghan ships rising to the surface. On the surface A large amount of Vektan ships can be seen. A flash of energy shoots from a large device and all the Vektan ships begin to glow with a red haze and fall from the sky. Echo tries hard to avoid the sudden rain of massive ships, in the chaos they end up in the beam that appears to be some kind of surface to orbit lifting field. I must fly up the beam and enter the base at the top. I fight some enemies with rockets and then enter a corridor back into normal gravity. I enter a room that looks suspiciously like the prelude to a boss battle. It is absolutely filled with ammo and weapons. I enter a large control room or war room like area and fight my way forwards. It is basically a long corridor. I fight my way along it and then take a lift higher up. Stahl berates us as we do. I find that he is a weak old man, held in a life support bed. As he talks, telling us about how the Helghast have been made strong by their personal planetary apocalypse. Sinclair appears  behind us and shoots Stahl and wounds Kellan. I can only lie and watch as he talks of our betrayal and the fact that he is going to go back to Vekta and wipe out the Helghast once and for all. Sinclair shoots Kellan dead and the credits roll.

Only it isn't the end. The credits are interrupted and we find ourselves playing as Echo in a vent in a Vektan occupied location. I have to use a spider-bot to open a door. Then fight through some enemies. I then come out into a large open area. I have to override two control panels and find a sniper rifle. The stealth is paramount here, Echo can cloak, though can still be seen if you get too close to civilians or soldiers. I must then sneak into a vent that has a view of a podium where Sinclair is making a speech. I shoot him and the credits begin again.

12% of trophies for one play through seems a bit cheap.
Roughly 15 hours.