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Today, Sony revealed that its eagerly-anticipated PS Vita exclusive Killzone: Mercenary will be releasing earlier than expected. Originally planned for release on September 17th in North America and September 18th in Europe, the game will now launch on September 4th in Europe, September 6th in the UK and September 10th in North America.

Though not implicitly stated, this is a wise move on Sony’s part and likely designed to get out of the way of Grand Theft Auto V, which is set for release worldwide on September 17th.

Killzone: Mercenary is currently under development at Sony-owned studio Guerrilla Cambridge – formerly Sony Cambridge – and will be one of two Killzone games to release in 2013. The other – Killzone: Shadow Fall – will launch alongside PlayStation 4 later this year.

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Sony’s recent prediction that it would sell less than 5 million Vitas during FY2014 is a worst case scenario, one executive has explained – with good chances for the portable to turn around.
Speaking to Gamasutra, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe senior business development manager Shahid Kamal Ahmad – best known for his approachability and friendliness to indie developers – said Sony’s forecast for investors does not take account of upcoming initiatives which may see the platform’s performance improve.
“Sometimes things can happen and they can dramatically change the evolution in terms of sales of a platform,” he said.
“But what you can never do is say ‘We’re definitely counting for this kind of increase.’ So you can put plans into motion and say ‘We’re trying this approach, that approach,’ and if something comes off, it’s going to be fantastic.”
Ahmad said one example of a surprising success is Thomas Was Alone, which was ported from PC to PS3 and Vita recently, and immediately become the best-selling game on the PSN.
“I had no idea there was going to be the amount of press attention that there was around Thomas Was Alone,” he said.
“If I’d put something like that in the original plan that I put together for engaging with the development community, I would have been laughed out of the office.
“It’s really funny, because I’ve spoken to a few people about it today internally, and they’ve all accepted it as ‘Yeah, of course that was going to happen!’ So in hindsight it’s easy to say that this event and that event is what caused a change in course dramatically, but to say that in advance is usually not appropriate or sensible.”
Ahmad said that he’s only a tiny part of Sony and can’t speak for its corporate performance, but suggested we not give up on the Vita yet.
“Looking back at the performance of different consoles over the course of history, sometimes you’ve had slow starts which have been suddenly sprung into life by a number of activities,” he said.
“What you don’t say ahead of time is, ‘Oh this will and that will happen, and suddenly we’ll have a massive spike in sales.’ It’s not the sort of thing that companies do.”
Regarding the Vita’s games drought, the executive said that “there isn’t a console in history where making sure that you have content for it wasn’t an issue”. Interestingly, he said he doesn’t expect the PS4 to have as much trouble.
“I think we’re going to have a really good launch, and I think we’re going to have a good amount of content appearing for quite some time on that,” he said.
“We’ve got more developer engagement on PS4 than we’ve had for any previous console, so that’s a really healthy sign.”
The rest of the article contains some interesting discussion of Sony’s new friendliness to indies; Ahmad is one of the most forthright executives in the industry at the moment, so his comments are well worth a read.
http://www.vg247.com/2013/05/14/vita-something-may-dramatically-change-handhelds-prospects-says-sony-

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As well as Batman Arkham Origins on PS3 the Vita will also be getting Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, a 2.5D ‘Metroidvania’ style adventure that continues the story after Origins. Here are the first screens and info.

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Developer Armature were chosen because of it’s familiarity with the Metroidvania style. The setting will be an island, home to part of Blackgate Penitentiary where a prison riot has taken place, although the opener will be in Gotham.

It’s side scrolling with 2D animatics and full voice acting telling the story (there’s a screen of one in the gallery). Rather than leveling up abilities this sees Bats progress through the prison through new gear and upgrades. The line launcher for example lets you cross wide gaps.

While it’s a 2D game it will take advantage of the 3D visuals and let you “explore, fight, and interact with the foreground and background”. The gargoyle mechanic made it across and you can grapple up and out of sight of pursuing enemies. The combat is described as similar to the main game with attacks, counters, and use of foreground and background, as well as gear when you fight. For example you can stun enemies with a Baterang. Explosive gel can be shot onto different points around the screens and another example talks about dropping a chandelier on enemies.

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• Arkham Origins Blackgate is completely separate and independent from Arkham Origins.
• It is being developed by Armature Studio. Armature Studio is a studio founded by several ex Retro employees, the studio responsible for the seminal Metroid Prime Trilogy.
• Arkham Origins Blackgate is a 2.5D, sidescrolling Metroidvania
• There is a focus on exploration and combat
• The story events take place after the events of Arkham Origins

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- Warner Bros. wanted to have a 2.5D-style Arkham game in the style of Metroidvania
- The company chose Armature because the studio was familiar with that style of game
- Takes place after the end of Origins
- Set on the isolated island at the Blackgate Penitentiary
- Prison uprising has occurred
- Intro level in Gotham
- Batman goes to Blackgate in order to put a stop to the riot
- 2D animatics with full voices tell the story
- Batman moves through a side-scrolling game world
- He'll pick up near gear and take on enemies along the way
- Interconnected passages and prison secrets
- Not focused on leveling up abilities like the console games
- Instead, it stays true to the subgenres formula
- All of Batmans improvements came through gear pick-ups and upgrades
- Team wanted to give players more of a sense of collection
- Mostly set along a 2D plane
- Takes full advantage of the visual three-dimensionality of the environments
- Explore, fight, and interact with the foreground abnd background
- Can grapple up to gargoyles on a background balcony while a crowd of armed inmates pass by
- Enemies will go after Batman from all angles
- Go to the foreground or background to tackle a designed foe
- Combat similar to the console Batman games
- Button taps to attack, counter, and use gear are in place
- Freeflow combat system
- Built from the ground up
- Batarang: stun enemies or hit distant objects
- Line launcher: cross wide gaps
- Explosive gel variation: shoot from a launcher onto spots around the screen
- This lets you get involved with entertaining takedowns such as dropping a chandelier on enemies from above
- More gadgets will also be in the game
- Has a version of the predator mode
- Game has a few more layers of feedback
- Ex: can see the sightlines of enemies
- This lets you know if enemies can see you or not
- Same kind of vantage points, floor grates, silent takedowns, glide kicks, weapon use, and breakable walls as in the console games
- Game is split into various sections
- Each can be accessed once you figure out a way inside
- No save rooms
- Modern checkpoint system
- Can manually save whenever you desire
- Can defeat the bosses in any order if you find out where you want to go
- We dont want you to break the game, but if you can exploit it in a certain way that we havent thought of, thats awesome. So its conceivable the players will have abilities that dont necessarily jibe that great with the boss. Weve taken some cues from other games where if you have a particular item against a boss, youll just rip them a new one, but we dont tell you what that item is
- Will have detective mode
- Tap a button and the screen fades into a digitized overlay with detailed info
- Green enemies: enemies havent seen you
- Red enemies: enemies are onto your location
- Move a reticle around the screen to focus Batmans attention
- Can use this to uncover secrets
- Uncover clues and analyze dangerous situations in detective mode

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Sony’s Shahid Ahmad, the man largely responsible for the PlayStation brand’s current rise in indie popularity, has announced early this morning (well, overnight) that there’s “an amazing big title” coming to the PlayStation Vita.
“Oh and there is an AMAZING big title coming to Vita,” he said on Twitter. “I can’t tell you anything about it, except that you are gonna be hooked for hours.”



Shahid has declined to comment further, but it’s likely that this isn’t referring to anything AAA in the usual sense of the word. We’d suspect this will be a top-tier indie game, perhaps something like Ridiculous Fishing (which fits, if he’s teasing) or perhaps even Minecraft.

Update here: Shahid has commented further to clarify a couple of things. It’s not an indie game, and the “hours” means “hours a day”. OK, so it’s big.
Regardless of what it is, Shahid is doing tremendous work at the moment, and we have already started to see the results of his turning the platform around.

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