With SOCOM servers KIA, first footage of H-Hour emerges
Will H-Hour save the team-based tactical shooter genre?
With the servers for Sony's SOCOM games near death, it seems fans of team-based tactical third-person shooters are stuck for something to play.
Or are they?
Shining a light at the end of the tunnel is H-Hour: World's Elite, the new team-based tactical third-person shooter spearheaded by the creative director of the original SOCOM games, David Sears.
This week developer SOF Studios released the first footage of the game, which was successfully crowdfunded through Kickstarter last year, raising $252,000 in the process.
Sears was creative director of the SOCOM series on PlayStation 2 while at Zipper Interactive, and he describes H-Hour as the spiritual successor to SOCOM.
The footage in the video, below, is captured from an early pre-alpha build of the game. SOF said it's developing a proof of concept demo so it can seek further funding from venture capital or a publisher to build the game. If all goes well, the finished product will release on PC and PlayStation 4 in January 2015.
In March 2012 Sony announced it had closed Zipper Interactive after it had completed PS Vita game Unit 13. The last SOCOM game the studio made was SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs for PlayStation 3, which launched in April 2011. The SOCOM franchise has remained dormant ever since.
