Sony’s next generation hardware speculation has been all the rage this week, but that hasn’t stopped the old rumor mill from churning out a couple of believable tales featuring the unannounced Killzone 4 and LittleBigPlanet 3.
The first rumor comes from VideoGamer, who is reporting that an extremely helpful “industry source” has told them that Killzone 4 is currently in development at Guerrilla Games, and that it could show up at the PlayStation 4’s anticipated debut on February 20th.
According to the unnamed source, Killzone 4 is being targeted as a “launch window” title for the unannounced PlayStation 4. If true this would be in keeping with Sony’s recent history of announcing Killzone titles alongside new hardware — Killzone 2 was announced at the PlayStation 3 debut, and Killzone: Mercenary was mentioned at the Vita’s announcement event.
For the record, SCEE decided against commenting on Killzone 4.
The next rumor arrives via VG247, in a report that suggests that the British studio Sumo Digital (the developers behind Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, and the LittleBigPlanet 2 Cross-Controller pack) is currently working on LittleBigPlanet 3. The report states that both Media Molecule and Sony contacted Sumo Digital “well over a year” ago about developing the sequel to LBP 2, however, neither source was sure if the game would be released for the PlayStation 3 or the next-gen PlayStation 4.
Joystiq dug around in the LittleBigPlanet 3 rumor pile a bit more and discovered an April 2012 Tweet from Superannuation, stating that Sumo Digital motion graphics artist Naomi Summerscales’ LinkedIn profile revealed that she was working on a “PS3 exclusive for Sony due out next year”. If the LBP 3 rumor is true, this would seem to indicate that the title is headed to Sony’s current generation console.
When asked about the LittleBigPlanet 3 rumor, both Sony and Sumo Digital declined to comment.
With Sony’s mystery event coming up this month and E3 just around the corner, it should not be long before we get official word on both Killzone 4 and LittleBigPlanet 3. Until then consider these to be nothing more than rumors and speculation, just to be on the safe side.