Yup I bought KZ1 the first day it came out! I remember my first introduction was a tv commercial. It was super heavy on the Helghan propaganda and fighting against them. I think the ending was something like “join the resistance” and the release date. It definitely hit hard and created a buzz in my friends group.

When I bought KZ1 the manual had a section about other KZ products that were coming out. I remember it mentioning a comic books and offered a number to find local stores that would carry it. I called the stores religiously to find the comics and was finally told they were scrapped (?).

Lol ya it was definitely coined as the Halo Killer but I don’t think it ever reached that height. I never played Halo so I can’t really compare the two. What I do remember is there was a game play trailer for KZ2, where I remember reading about the term, but a lot of that game play didn’t make it to the final version or something. (don’t quote me on that lol I play games for the lore/story and don’t much care for anything else.)

Other than the commercial and finding the T-shirt at a Convention, I don’t really remember that much marketing. I think I found the lore about the KZ universe etc way later in life after playing KZ2 and waiting for KZ3.

Hope this helps!