Software may be primed for a new generation of hardware, but the model that defines its content adheres to lessons of old. Killzone: Shadow Fall, consciously and inconspicuously, wasn’t one to go off-model. Vague novelties allowed it to score somewhere in the average range, leaving its downloadable content the task of supercharging the inevitable decay of its structure.
Enter the Insurgent Pack, a smattering of Killzone goodies aimed squarely at fans of Guerrilla Games’ signature shooter. Included is a brand new multiplayer class, new abilities for the existing classes, a handful of new weapons, and two new modes aimed to support the single-player campaign.
The insurgent class is one of Guerrilla’s better contributions to multiplayer combat. Born with nothing but a pistol, the insurgent gains abilities and weapons by stealing them from downed members of the opposing team. Filling out each abilities slot leads to a delightful assemblage of each class into a single solider. Each ability has a limited number of uses, which encourages and facilitates shifting combinations of abilities. The insurgent class can also hack turrets, likening him to the Engineer class of Killzone’s past.
If nothing else, the insurgent class demonstrates an interest in further separating Killzone from its peers. The playful nature and considerable risk injected into its foundation scream variety, and its pistol-only start and do-it-yourself acquisition of abilities seem built especially for those who may have squeezed every last drop of interest out of the three existing classes. New abilities and weapons for said existing classes are either safe or indistinguishable from existing options, lacking the definition and pure excitement of a fully-featured Insurgent class.
Speaking of snoozers, the two new modes boasted by the Insurgent Pack’s bullet points stretch the definition of “new mode.” Single Player Elite Mode merely defaults to hard mode, but only gives the player three lives for the entire campaign. Likewise, Online Collectibles Mode creates a few new opportunities for boosting earned points in online matches. It’s not that these additions are particularly detrimental to existing content – far from it, a similar three-life mode in Dead Space 2 provided a harrowing experience, to say to least – but rather merely to state that there’s nothing to it. These could have been free content updates in a regular patch, but instead they’re bundled with the Insurgent Pack as a perceived value-add. If modes are supposed to be food, these are crumbs.
As its title suggests, the Insurgent Pack is mostly good for the titular insurgent class. The pack, the assorted grab-bag of abilities and weapons lumped into the existing pile, are the parts that will be consumed and forgotten. This leaves the Insurgent Pack’s recommendation as one with a handful of important qualifiers. Do you still have your copy of Killzone: Shadow Fall? Are you still playing it? Is a new, and actually great, multiplayer class enough of an enticement to spend ten of your dollars? Probably. Maybe.
If I had to assign a score to the Insurgent Pack (an action that seems somewhat inappropriate given my familiarity with the series and the wobbly nature of the content), it would stand alongside its parent with a solid 6 or 7 out of 10. It adheres rather than defines, although it’s certainly pushing the entire package closer to the former. Maybe at the end of the year, when Killzone’s DLC has finished its run, will it push the game into something greater.
