PlayStation 3 owners will be getting a bit more time with Killzone 2 before release than originally anticipated, as Sony's semi-official blog ThreeSpeech announces a demo for the eagerly anticipated game dropping this week.

A demo for Killzone 2 will be hitting the PlayStation Network on Thursday, February 5th, several weeks ahead of the originally announced February 26th date, which would have placed the demo a mere day before release. In North America, this is the exclusive GameStop demo, with those not pre-ordering from the retailer still having to wait until the 26th.

The demo will feature the first two parts of the first level of the game, giving players a chance to learn the controls in advance of the title's official release.

Between this and today's Resident Evil 5 demo, PlayStation 3 owners will have a good bit less hard disk space by the end of the week.

UPDATE: Sony Computer Entertainment America contacted us to let us know that the demo would still be a GameStop exclusive in North America until the 26th of February. We've updated the article to reflect this.

Killzone 2 demo - live in the PSN store on the 5th of February!!! [ThreeSpeech]

Send an email to Michael Fahey, the author of this post, at fahey@kotaku.com.