PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate blasting onto PS4, PS Vita this summer

If you thought you heard the last from Q-Games’ PixelJunk Shooter, you thought wrong… Double Eleven and Q-Games have announced that PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate is headed to the PS4 and PS Vita as a digital PSN release.

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate will feature a 60fps framerate and enhanced visuals (at 1080p on the PS4) which also include improved fluid simulation, realtime lighting, a new HUD layout and gameplay tweaks. The ships are now also rendered in 3D as opposed to the 2D sprites in the original.

The game is currently scheduled for a summer 2014 release and will be on display on March 7th at the  BitSummit MMXIV event in Kyoto, Japan.

Check out the first alpha screens and read on for all the info!

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate screens:

As part of their long-standing collaboration, Double Eleven and Kyoto based Q-Games are proud to announce that this summer they are bringing PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate to PSN on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita!

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate is a twin stick shooter with equal elements of action, exploration, and puzzle solving. Players interact with environments that run an advanced fluid dynamics simulation needed to solve puzzles, overcome enemies, and progress through many unique levels. Learning how to combine water, lava, gas, magnetic oil and even stomach acid with your ships special power-ups is essential to progressing into the unpredictable depths of Apoxus Prime.

For those who remember the original PixelJunk Shooter games, Ultimate at its heart combines the campaigns of Shooter 1 and 2 into one following narrative. That is just the beginning, as the team at Double Eleven sought to create a faithful but fresh addition to the series by introducing a number of enhancements over previous shooter titles.

Mark South, COO of Double Eleven said ?”When we set out to create Ultimate for PS4 and Vita we spent a while looking at how we could improve play experience before getting underway. We knew the amount work that Q-Games put into the original level design by hiding challenge inside of simplicity, providing control over the ship?’s balance between momentum and inertia, and we held those things as constants. There were two solid games to play with, so our goals were going to be around making the combat more engaging, providing better control and visual feedback to the player as well bringing in some PlayStation features we think are must haves like Cross Play and Cross Save.”?

Achieving these goals meant a complete visual overhaul on PS4, introducing real time environment lighting, a host of new visual fx as well as visual improvements to the fluid simulation. Running at 60FPS both visually and on the back end physics simulation supports this work by capturing more action every section and improving environment interaction and responsiveness. ?

“We’ve also introduced 3D ships to provide for more movement feedback and better situation within the environment and rethought the HUD to communicate more information to the player with less overlay. We hope that all of these enhancements and more help place Ultimate as a credible third game in the series.”

Alongside Double Eleven’s enhancements the game will also include couch co-op for the entire campaign as well online multiplayer battles, and leaderboards.

PixelJunk Shooter Ultimate will have its first preview on March 7th at the upcoming BitSummit MMXIV in Kyoto at both Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia and Q-Games?’ booths. Be sure to follow @DoubleElevenLtd for future announcements and updates!