A tiny little interview here:
http://media.ps3.ign.com/media/142/14211237/vid_2279070.html
Ted promises a similar jump in technology (graphics, gameplay) from Ratchet to Resistance 2 as from Resistance 1 to Ratchet.
Also I think it's a great idea that they change the narrative to be focussed more on and from Hale. The third person historical narrative to me really didn't work that well. It's not that as a story device it's not effective, but as a gameplay driven story device it's hard to make it so that you actually get a sense of urgency and give the player an idea of actually mattering in the game. It was my main gripe in terms of presentation of Resistance one (overall the story was at least decent enough), so I'm glad they are addressing it, and their new approach with Hale being in a more commanding and strategic role for the US campaign sounds good and has a lot of potential, and even makes some sense in that he's become a bit of a big guy after the first game. Potential I see in particular in building out the tension of him still being infected with the Chimera virus that was already used reasonably well in his encounters with his squad mate.
He also mentions why they go for 60 players (they thought they had a decent handle on 40 players now and wanted to explore the boundaries between MMO and FPS), and talks a little about squad mechanics, detailing three different soldier classes (soldier, sniper, medic, basically) and a few details on how the medic has some interesting abilities and is a more rounded, in the middle character who is more difficult to play, but has more to him than the other two like some ability that charges based on how well he performs offensively for instance).
I don't know, because he leaves a lot in the dark, but if I were to guess, I'm thinking that there will be more squad based stuff in the 60 player online games, maybe with different teams having to achieve different goals, and maybe even a mode where you could do a four-way match between four teams in the same environment or something.
The (up to?) 8 player co-op partly originated from the complaints from the lack of online co-op in Resistance one, and will basically be a story that runs paralel to the single player campaign. I wonder if it will be of the same size also. If so, awesome, and it's now officially the first FPS that I'm actually looking forward to. Somehow Resistance 1's single player just clicked with me and I can definitely stand playing more, especially with all these excellent improvements, and I'd love to play this kind of coop too.