Killzone: Mercenary Launches Offline Botmode For Vita Shooter Today

The war between the Helghast and the ISA continues to rage on the Vita as the team at Guerilla Cambridge finally announce the launch of an offline Botzone for Killzone: Mercenary, releasing today.

Killzone: Mercenary launched to much praise last fall, earning praise as being the first portable first-person shooter to truly nail the formula. Not only that, but it was a solid shooter in every regard, offering up an exciting single player campaign, loads of customization options, additional missions to sink extra hours into and even a 4v4 online multiplayer component that brought a console shooting experience to the palm of your hands. You can read our review of the game here, in case you need some additional convincing.

Earlier this year, the developers let lose the first content update for the portable game, a pair of free additional maps for the online portion of the game offering retooled versions of a couple fan-favorite maps from Killzone 2. At the time, Guerilla Cambridge promised that another update was inbound, this one finally giving players the chance to enjoy offline shootouts via a multiplayer Botzone.

Today is the big day for those who have been waiting but, unlike the new maps, this one will apparently cost ya. No word yet on an official price point, but the official announcement does state that the Botzone will be a for-pay expansion. It looks like we’ll have to wait until the PlayStation Network update goes live this afternoon to discover how much we’ll be forking over for offline play but, seeing as how the developers already dished out two new maps at no extra charge, here’s hoping some good will has been built with the community to encourage some additional purchases.

So long as we’re not talking about an upsettingly hefty fee, I’m pretty much already sold on the content. It’ll allow you to play all of the online maps offline, with up to seven AI partners and enemies, wherever you are. The AI will utilize the game’s various ziplines, Vanguard upgrades, etc., which should help add the feel of playing against other humans when you’re on the go and away from an internet signal. There are plenty of extra missions to play, sure, but those things can take a while to get through. I have a feeling I’d turn to Mercenary more frequently on the train or waiting in line if I had the ability to set up a quick match and shoos some enemies in the span of 10 minutes. It doesn’t hurt that Botzone will count toward those online trophies, too.

Look for Botzone to hit Killzone: Mercenary later today on PlayStation Vita. If you’ve already updated the game at some point, the new patch should only take up about 23 MB of space. If you’re just now getting the game, expect to lose about 549 MB, all told.