14 DAY TRIAL // Sony, as the publisher, and Zipper Interactive, as the developer, have announced that their SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs title will be launched on April 19 in North America, exclusively for the PlayStation 3 home gaming console, with the European date probably coming the customary three days later.
SOCOM 4 will put players in the combat boots of the leader of a small five-men team made up of NATO trained special forces soldiers that are inserted in a fictional nation in South East Asia.
An extremist group has managed to take over and threatens to stop all shipping through the vital Straits of Malacca and the NATO team needs to solve the situation quickly and, as much as possible, quietly.
The team includes three Americans and two South Korean operatives.
Gamers will have six days to complete the single player component of the game and each of the team members will have very specialized roles, with the players controlled character in charge of using them where their unique skills are best suited.
The areas visited by players will include half ruined cities, slums, jungle areas and humidity filled marches.
Zipper Interactive is well known for the multiplayer experiences that it creates and SOCOM 4 will be no exception, allowing as many as 32 players to battle each other in a variety of game modes.
SOCOM 4 was first showed off in 2010 at the Game Developers Conference, with Sony using it to show how a traditional gaming experience, in this case a tactical shooter, can be played by using the Move motion tracking system and its navigation subcontroller.
Before SOCOM 4 arrives, players will have a chance to see how a shooter can be controlled with Move when Killzone 3 is released, on February 22.
North American gamers who pick up Killzone 3 can get access to the beta of SOCOM 4.