SOCOM 4 Deploys This Week

On behalf of everyone at Zipper Interactive, we’re pleased to announce that SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs available for purchase in North America starting today! Expect to see it released in other territories all over the world throughout the remainder of the week.

In the SOCOM 4 solo campaign, players will guide the Operations Commander and his combined squad of U.S. Navy SEALs and Korean Special Forces across 14 missions set in war-torn Southeast Asia and a country on the verge of civil war. But SOCOM 4 doesn’t stop there – fans can also expect exciting competitive multiplayer with all-new maps, original gametypes and numerous modes of play in addition to user-defined custom cooperative campaigns that change every time you play them! Check out our launch trailer above to see what we’re talking about.

Outside of the game itself, we’re also offering fans a number of other goodies to celebrate SOCOM 4’s release. Log on to PlayStation Home, for example, and you can find up to five unique (and free!) SOCOM 4 shirts for your Home Avatar, as well as a special Bomb Technician outfit for $2.99! We’re also introducing a number of SOCOM 4 PSN Avatars starting today and will have a free SOCOM 4 theme for your PlayStation 3 system next week.

Before we go – we do want you to play SOCOM 4, after all – we wanted to leave you with the patch notes for the update you’ll be prompted to download upon booting SOCOM 4 up for the very first time. Included within the patch are a number of updates from our S4 beta trial and a number of other changes that reflect the feedback we’ve received over the past month.

Thank you once again for all your support and feedback, we hope to hear from you some more on our official forums at SOCOM.com. Now go have some fun!

SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs Beta v1.02

April 19, 2011 TPPS: 41 MBs, DLS: 57 MBs

Gameplay

• Increased XP requirements to gain “Rank” levels
• Lowered XP bonuses for “Classic” mode “Wins”
• Decreased Weapon XP bonuses earned for “Kills, Assists,” and “Headshots”
• Adjusted “Classic” mode merit bonuses so that “Kills, Assists, Team Kills, Bomb Techs Killed”, and “Data Carriers Killed” are the only bonuses that are increased by “Classic” status
• (Single-Player Only) Widened allied “Revive” range so that it’s easier to resuscitate fallen teammates

Weapons and Gear

• Increased firing accuracy for all weapons and aim modes so that the first few shots are substantially more accurate (with variations by weapon)
• Increased horizontal and vertical recoil while in Reflex, ACOG and Low Variable Scope modes
• All long-range sub-machine gun damage has been lowered and maximum range has been decreased
• Decreased maximum throwing power and lowered throwing angle for all grenade types
• “Gear 1” loadout now automatically switches to “Gear 2” loadout when “Gear 1” loadout is depleted (and vice versa)
• Ammo counters now flash red when ammunition is low

Audio/Visual

• (Multiplayer Only) Camera position has been moved back to show more of the player-character
• (Multiplayer Only) Camera field of view has been widened by roughly 20%

Interface

• (Multiplayer Only) Character markers now float in closer proximity to teammates’ heads
• Updated “Vote Kick” user-interface so that it takes up less of the screen
• Revive actions now take priority over resupplying when allies are downed near ammo crates
• Fixed the display stats for the FDO-11 and IW80-A2 assault rifles to their appropriate values
• Post-game MVP screen now works properly

Technical

• (Standard Mode) Suppression game length is now 10 minutes
• (Classic Mode) Suppression round count is now 11
• (Classic Mode) Suppression round length is now 5 minutes
• (Classic Mode) Uplink round count is now 11
• (Classic Mode) Uplink rounds length is now 5 minutes
• (Standard Mode) Last Defense round count is now 1
• (Standard Mode) Last Defense round length is now 15 minutes
• (Classic Mode) Last Defense rounds count is now 11
• (Classic Mode) Last Defense round length is now 5 minutes
• (Classic Mode) Bomb Squad round count is now 10
• (Classic Mode) Bomb Squad round length is now 7 minutes
• Fixed issue that prevented Clan Challenge queue from properly working

Miscellaneous

• Made various PlayStation Move adjustments including latency reduction, less sensitive recoil countering, the added ability to pitch up while firing, tuning to the turn and pitch areas, etc
• Renamed PlayStation Move control schemes to “Standard Aim” and “Standard Arcade”

This isn’t all we have planned for future SOCOM 4 updates, as we are still collecting data from players just like you. In the mean time, talk about our changes with fellow SOCOM fans on our official beta discussion forum on SOCOM.com by following this link!