No hard drive install for Killzone 2

By Oli Welsh Published 26 November, 2008

None at all. Optional or otherwise.

Good news this morning for those dismayed at console gaming's steady slide into the patch-and-install quagmire of playing on PCs. Sony's flagship PS3 shooter, Killzone 2, will not install to the machine's hard drive.

In an "ask the developer" thread on the PlayStation.com boards, Guerrilla's testing manager Seb Downie said, "we are not planning to do any install".

Asked to clarify whether this merely meant installing would be optional, he posted this unambiguous response: "No install. Optional or otherwise."

Killzone 2 will be released in February, exclusively for Sony's machine. It was your second-favourite game at this year's Eurogamer Expo - jointly with Resident Evil 5 - so all signs currently point to "quite good actually".

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (32) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DFawkes #1 3 years ago

    Nice to see a competent developer nowadays. Not that it's pure incompetence that devs don't, but it can feel that way sometimes.

  • matrim83 #2 3 years ago

    So if they can get the game to look as good as it does and not need an install (mind you I dont know how it performs) why do the other companies do?

    Shoddy, half-arsed porting?

  • paul_haine #3 3 years ago

    Weren't installs compulsory? Or did I dream that?

  • bigbadbeasty #4 3 years ago

    *gasps*

  • Pirotic #5 3 years ago

    See, unless the game has no loading times what-so-ever I'd argue they've not made the most out of the hardware. One of the advantages of the PS3 is that every one has a hdd and even if it's just whacking a few hundred mb of commonly loaded/unloaded texture data on the hdd, it can still make a pretty big difference.

  • SeesThroughAll #6 3 years ago

    It probably uses a couple of Giga as Cache, but it's not called an installation. ;)

  • mcbi4kh2 #7 3 years ago

    No hdd install is good news? I suppose the quiter running noise, faster load times and less disc wear can be a bit annoying at times.

  • kangarootoo #8 3 years ago

    "Weren't installs compulsory? Or did I dream that?"

    I think it was more the case that installs "could" be compulsary, insofar as there was no requirement from Sony that they be optional. There are already quite a few games out there that don't do installs.

    "It probably uses a couple of Giga as Cache, but it's not called an installation. ;)"

    A cache isn't the same though, by its very definition. A cache is when the game reads something from the disc under normal use, and then stores it on the HDD for quicker access in the future.

    The read from disc is still done during play, rather than in advance of play as with an install. Also, a cache doesn't fence off space on your HDD, and the cache will simply be overwritten if the space it occupies is later required by something else (whereas an install takes up defined space on the disc, and needs deleting after use if that space is to be freed up).

  • Les #9 3 years ago

    Gamers are whiners. If a console doesn't come equipped with a HDD as standard they bitch. If it does come with a HDD as standard and therefore has a higher price they bitch. If the console only works with rip-off official HDD peripherals they bitch. If the console works with any regular laptop HDD they bitch. If the console has a standard HDD and games make use of it through installs they bitch. If the console has a standard HDD and games don't make use of it through installs they bitch, etc., etc., etc.

  • mcbi4kh2 #10 3 years ago

    Better than bitching about people bitching though.
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/08 @ 09:23

  • Les #11 3 years ago

    "Better than bitching about people bitching though."

    LOL. Wasn't necessarily bitching though, just reporting a fact... ;)

  • mcbi4kh2 #12 3 years ago

    aye, can't please all the people all the time. I dont know why people bitch about hdd installs though, I've always thought it was a great feature.

  • Les #13 3 years ago

    "I dont know why people bitch about hdd installs though, I've always thought it was a great feature."

    Yeah, I agree. But then again, I put in a 400GB HDD and don't 'do' pirated 1080p movies so space is not really a concern anymore. :)

  • kangarootoo #14 3 years ago

    "Wasn't necessarily bitching though, just reporting a fact"

    Is that the cracking of thin ice I hear? :)

  • kangarootoo #15 3 years ago

    "aye, can't please all the people all the time. I dont know why people bitch about hdd installs though, I've always thought it was a great feature."

    I appreciate the reduced load times, and I like that the option has now been added to the 360, but I am also in the "make them optional instead of mandatory" camp. But then if they were optional, would people avoid using them and then whine about load times? Probably.

    I would of course prefer it if the bluray seek time was faster, then then I would also quite like a small asteroid on the end of a pencil.

  • mcbi4kh2 #16 3 years ago

    @Les
    Purely out of interest (of course) where did you get 1080p movies from that would play on ps3? (pm please :) )

    @kangarootoo

    Yeah, optional FTW.

  • Les #17 3 years ago

    "Is that the cracking of thin ice I hear? :)"

    Is that arbitrary quoting I discern? :p
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/08 @ 10:09

  • Les #18 3 years ago

    "Purely out of interest (of course) where did you get 1080p movies from that would play on ps3? (pm please :) )"

    I don't have any pirated 1080p movies so I didn't get them from anywhere (before other people start to ask as well).

    But I remember a poster around here that mentioned he ran out of space on his 500GB drive because of his HD movie collection. So I made some challengeable assumptions: 1) HD = 1080p; 2) the movies were pirated and not ripped or downloaded from the PSN store. Hence the remark. :)

  • Shakey_Jake33 #19 3 years ago

    tbh I have been hoping Sony would add an NXE-style install option, so I can save wear and tear on the laser.

  • mcbi4kh2 #20 3 years ago

    oh ok, just you finished your scentence with 'anymore' hence the confusion. Free 1080p movies ftw.

  • Ryze #21 3 years ago

    ^ nope - games are already depending on the games running from HDD AND BD in many titles.

    This is very unlikely, as to install a 50Gb game as well as its multi Gb install would bring back the seek time issue when the game tries to access the installed data at the same time as streaming data from the 'Blu-Ray'.

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #22 3 years ago

    It's all about options and power to the consumer.

    My ideal solution would be the No HDD Requirement and Optional ONLY Disc Installs of the 360 coupled with the ability to buy an empty caddie that allows you to upgrade/add you own HDD to it.

  • Les #23 3 years ago

    "It's all about options and power to the consumer."

    In an ideal world, yes. But as it's business it's all about compromise...
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/08 @ 11:19

  • mcbi4kh2 #24 3 years ago

    I was wondering how long it would take for a troll to come in, 25 posts. Not bad.
    Edited by 1 at 26/11/08 @ 10:46

  • HolyJebus #25 3 years ago

    I was just thinking. With all this mandatory install nonsense, will that make it more unlikely to have backwards compatibility in the PS4?

  • Miths #26 3 years ago

    @mcbi4kh2
    "No hdd install is good news? I suppose the quiter running noise... can be a bit annoying at times."

    You wouldn't happen to be thinking of the XBox 360 jet turbi... DVD drive, would you? :)
    Aside from a few brief disc loading "clicks" or similar now and then, my Blu-ray drive is utterly silent around 95% of the time. In fact the only time I can hear it (and it's still very quiet) tends to be during game installs where it's running constantly at full speed.


  • mcbi4kh2 #27 3 years ago

    I havent got a 360 but I have heard one in full flow and it can be quite noisy, the new NXE optional install for games is the way forward I think.

    I hear the odd bit of clicking and grinding from my blu-ray but the faster load times are what appeals more than anything.

  • Les #28 3 years ago

    "the new NXE optional install for games is the way forward I think."

    Wouldn't call it a way forward, rather a compromise. The way forward would be DLC. But using optical formats just for distribution, to be copied to a HDD to get rid of noice or get acceptable load times is rather messy IMO. Typical case of fixing the symptom rather than the problem.

  • Arwin #29 3 years ago

    A system that uses both disc and HDD should always be able to perform better than a system that uses only one of these. At least, unless a console has been shoddily built and shares both disc and HDD on a bandwidth limited bus or something.

  • SpaceMidget75 Verified Senior Software Developer, Minerva Computer Services #30 3 years ago

    "It's all about options and power to the consumer. "

    Sorry Les, you misunderstood the way I meant that to sound. I wasn't talking about what is, but what I would like in an ideal world.

    I'm well aware it's also about business too which is why MS charge a fortune for HDD's - the one thing I think they should change with regards to this topic.

    I think that would be pretty perfect for me then.

    You'll still be able to get a cheap non-hdd console, you can copy the entire game to the HDD and if you decide to do this, affordably upgrade the drive. 2 out of 3 ain't bad I suppose.

  • Toadie48 #31 3 years ago

    It's about time a PS3 game doesn't NEED to install on the harddrive. How many PS3 games take like 10 mins just to play a 5 min game on a mates machine cause you need to cocking install the game?

  • Les #32 3 years ago

    What annoys me much more than HDD installs are game patches that take hours to download and install. I'd rather publishers released their game when it was actually finished...