Guerrilla Games has announced that their highly anticipated first-person shooter, Killzone: Mercenary, will launch for the PlayStation Vita on September 17, 2013.
While Killzone: Mercenary does revisit certain events from the Killzone trilogy, the game is a new addition to the franchise and takes place just after the events in the original PlayStation 2 shooter. Players take on the role of a former UCA-soldier turned mercenary (which is appropriate, considering the game’s title) named Arran Danner. During the course of a mission to evacuate the Vektan Ambassador and his family Danner learns that the outcome of the war depends on the safety of the Ambassador’s son. As both sides scramble to capture the boy, Danner finds himself placed squarely in the middle of the conflict.
Killzone: Mercenary consists of nine single-player missions (Guerrilla claims that each one runs almost one full hour in length), and a robust 8-player multiplayer mode that contains six maps and three different game types — one of which is the Warzone mode.
While the single and multiplayer modes are separate experiences, they are also tied together with the Mercenary‘s reward system. Players will collect money during both single-player missions and multiplayer matches based on their performance. This money is deposited into a primary bank account that can be used to purchase additional gear and weapons for use in both single player mode or multiplayer matches.
Despite its dual stick layout, the PlayStation Vita has not yet had a truly “triple-A” first-person shooter. We will have to wait until we get a copy of the final game to say for sure, but all the early signs appear to indicate that Killzone: Mercenary could be the shooter that Vita owners have been waiting for. At the very least, it looks amazing running on Sony’s handheld.
Check out the latest trailer for Killzone: Mercenary below, and look for more coverage on the game as we close in on its September 17th launch date.
