Killzone 3 Multiplayer: Class Guide

To get the most out of Killzone 3’s multiplayer you’re going to want to stick to one class and unlock their extra features first. To save you the hassle of making a wrong decision, we’ve rundown the benefits and drawbacks of each class, and how best to use them.

Marksman

Bizarrely, the sniper class in Killzone 3 is the most versatile of all the five classes. Depending on your loadout you can be deadly from afar or hidden up close. Either way, you’ll want to watch out for this class. You’ll find the majority of your team will be using this class too, since it enables all sorts of play styles.

If you want to stick to ranged combat, then the scoped single-shot rifle or the VC32 sniper rifle will be your best port of calls. Alternatively, equipping the StA52 and the Machine Pistol will enable you to sneak behind enemy lines with your cloak equipped to get up-close and personal. Remember when ‘stealthed’, however, that you should move slowly when approaching the enemy to avoid causing your cloak to ripple.

Upgrading the cloak is the obvious initial choice, at least the second tier upgrade that allows indefinite cloak use. Beyond that, Scramble is a good ability to pick up since it prevents you and your allies appearing on the radar, even when firing. Upgrading this to tier two will counter the Tacticians Recon ability, but we’d avoid going for the third option – it’s mostly the same except your enemies radars will turn to static whenever you’re near, informing them that you’re in the vicinity.

Tactician

A good tactician is all you need to win a game of Killzone 3, since without one your team will be destined to spend half the match running from the base to whichever objective you have to tackle. Making sure your team is in control of the nearest spawn point to the objective, thereby allowing a steady stream of reinforcements each time someone is killed. If your team doesn’t have a tactician, take the role – it will be the deciding factor.

Their starting weapon, the StA11 SE, is a great all-rounder and good enough to avoid upgrading at all. In fact, with this weapon equipped the tactician will be a considerably faster sprinter – which is very important if you’re hoping to take the long route around the gunfights and into the enemy’s base. Since tacticians don’t have a cloak or disguise to sneak past enemy, try to circle around the back of your opponents to better get the jump on them.

The Tactics ability is the most important to upgrade since this will make capturing spawn points considerably quicker. As you can expect, this is useful as it will mean you won’t need to hang around in the necessary capturing radius for too long – which can often leave you vulnerable. Recon is less important, especially since it is easily countered by the marksman’s Scramble, however air drones can be useful when defending an area.

Infiltrator

This class is far more about personal play style than empowering everyone. That said, if you are the type of gamer who prefers to sneak in and get the objectives done, then this is the class for you. In the right hands, infiltrators are fast, quiet and – most of all – they are deadly. They are as good as marksmen at sneaking into the enemies midst, except they do so by blending rather than stealth.

Infiltrators start with shotguns, which are perfect for their close-range combat. However, this weapon is not easy to utilise on Killzone 3, so it may be this that you want to switch out first before unlocking further abilities. When disguised, avoid charging head first into a gunfight. Though you may appear like an ally, your enemies won’t fall for the disguise acting like that and will simply gun you down. Play it smooth and sneak around the back, where possible tricking enemies into believing you’re heading to the same place as them.

Both their abilities are very useful here. Upgrading your Disguise will enable you to bypass turrets and – at the highest tier – melee enemies without breaking your costume. Survivalist is the ability that makes the infiltrator far more handy at capturing objectives, increasing the speed and stamina of their sprints and, when unlocking the third tier, allow the planting and disarming of objectives to be completed quicker.

Field Medic

The problem with the medic is that, at first, he is fairly weak compared to additional classes. This isn’t to say his health is lower or bullets softer, but that a medic doesn’t really come into their own until you unlock the higher tier purchases. However, every team needs a medic – and if you’re one of those types who enjoy support roles, this is perfect for you.

The LS57 SMG they start with is fairly weak, especially over long distances. We’d suggest unlocking at least one new weapon, otherwise you’ll probably want to forage for fallen weaponry each time you spawn. Remember when reviving allies, however, that you now need to stand fairly closely to their body – so don’t bother rushing in to quickly resurrect your team-mates if enemies could still be near.

As selfish as this sounds, it may be better for the medic to unlock the Triage set of abilities before improving their Revive skill. This will make them more useful in battle, with the last tier of Triage enabling a wounded medic to simply climb to his feet again. Improving Revive only rewards allies with additional ammo – so not much of an improvement on the base skill.

Engineer

The appeal of the turret-building engineer is an obvious one, and as you might expect they are better suited to defending positions rather than attacking them. For this reason it takes a certain mindset before succeeding with an engineer’s role. However, they are a good way of earning experience points with the bounty of repairable ammo caches that fill each map.

An engineer’s heavy weapons are better suited for mid to close range, since their recoil will cause the majority of your bullets to miss over range. The best way to succeed with this class is to limit the angles needed to fire from, such as fighting in corridors or doorways. The aiming for these weapons are considerably slower than other rifles too – so should you be attacked from an alternate angle while in iron sights, consider the fight lost.

The engineer’s abilities are the least inspired of the lot. Improving repair simply increases the speed at which objects are fixed – while allowing you to hack enemy turrets at the third tier. Otherwise it’s your turrets that can be upgraded and, except for the odd well-placed machine, these won’t really score you kills until you’ve added rockets to their arsenal with the final upgrade. Once they have rockets, however, the kills will come rolling in.