The man in question Douglas Ladore, claims that Sony falsely advertised Killzone: Shadow Fall as running entirely in 1080p, when in fact the multiplayer mode doesn’t at all. Ladore claims that gamers “quickly noticed and complained that Killzone’s multiplayer graphics were blurry to the point of distraction.”
After a while, Ladore decided to take the matter into his own hands and filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in California. Ladore aims to prevent Sony from continuing to advertise the game as being 1080p, and is looking for damages – ambitiously around the $5m mark.
A Digital Foundry report earlier this year revealed that the game uses technical trickery in multiplayer mode, a technique called temporal reprojection, to achieve a similar resolution.
The lawsuit says the trick is meant to provide “‘subjectively similar’ results” but it just isn’t the same.
Developer Guerrilla Games said in response that it would be more precise about its language in the future.
But because things like the box haven’t been modified to remove what the lawsuit calls “an unqualified ‘1080p'” listing, “millions of consumers have been tricked into paying full price for a video game that doesn’t deliver what is promised.”
The lawsuit attributes the game’s sales directly to the falesly advertised 1080p graphics.
It even goes on to explain how Killzone: Shadow Fall’s success was detrimental in the console war between Sony and Microsoft and helped the PS4 conquer the Xbox One.
Sony has not yet commented on the lawsuit.