The creative director of the original SOCOM games has returned to the tactical, team-based shooter genre with H-Hour: World’s Elite for PC. David Sears, of SOF Studios, was creative director of the SOCOM series on PlayStation 2 while at Zipper Interactive, and he’s launched a Kickstarter for H-Hour, which he describes as the spiritual successor to SOCOM.
Sears is after $200,000, and has raised half the target with 12 days to go. If the $200,000 funding target is met Sears will create a playable demo designed to attract venture capital funding to make the entire game, but if $1.5 million is raised through Kickstarter Sears will complete the PC version, and if $2 million is raised a next-gen console version will be made. “PS4 looks like it’s going to be popular,” Sears said.
H-Hour is described as a hybrid third-person and first-person shooter. In third-person you’ll see our character, as you’d expect. In first-person you only have a reticule, and the game adjusts the field of view so you feel “in the s***”. And there’s a naturally enhanced zoomed in perspective that provides a “twitch play edge”.
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.
The pitch video is below: