XXL Game Corner: Killzone: Shadow Fall Intercept Review

Publisher: SCEA

Developer: Guerrilla Games

Platform: PS4

Release Date: Available Now

 While it doesn't offer anything innovative, Killzone: Shadow Fall's Intercept DLC still succeeds as a co-op experience that is worth your time. This new mode gives up to four players the opportunity to take on advancing waves of Helghast soldiers in an effort to defend a few key locations. Despite a few maps that will seem very familiar to vets of the game, Intercept does a great job of adding another layer to the satisfying gunplay and classes present in standard multiplayer.

The great thing about Intercept is each of its four classes feels distinct: Medics, as the name implies, can heal, revive and resupply; Tacticians begin with pistols, so direct combat isn’t their strongest suit. But they can build up to three automated turrets and one of those fancy nano shields for defense; Marksmans are equipped with sniper weaponry that keeps you far away from battle and also scouts out the landscape for your team; Assaults, will fire at will and is the grunt of the group. Team work is paramount here as no single soldier can do everything needed to successfully defend a location so that guarantees players absolutely must work together to taste victory. Though the maps aren’t huge, they’re wide enough that you can’t cover everywhere as a team and the waves of Helghast are relentless and they don’t stop until you win, so you and your selected team will need to be on point. There are no strictly defined waves of enemies, and you don’t attain victory for surviving through said waves. Instead, all members of your team (up to four) passively earn points for holding uplinks and actively earn points for things like kills, headshots, and assists. These points are built up individually and, when banked at the center base, start to accumulate toward a goal amount. Reaching that goal, which varies by matchmaking lobby, leads to victory.

Once you pick your class, you and three others need to map out a strategy and understand specific points of entry for Helghast swarms. First, you have to group together with your teammates to kill the Helghast as they move forward from point to point. So, protecting the points (there are three) isn’t too difficult during gameplay when you have your teammates. It’s when you either die or don’t have enough men to protect the points is when the game gets difficult. This is the most basic part of the game, as you’ve played it before in other FPS titles. Cloaked enemies join the fray from an early stage and the Helghast regularly drop in boss enemies to shake things up, too. These look like the boss from the single-player campaign and are capable of teleporting and cloaking as well as being accompanied by their own drones. The longer you play you'll start to notice that the enemy AI is kind of all over the place. In some encounters they'll flank you around a single piece of cover; other times they'll stand clueless next to a wall, inviting an easy headshot.

The XXL Endgame

For a $9.99 add-on Killzone: Shadow Fall Intercept is well thought out, and offers enough reason to rekindle your Killzone love. While we would have liked to see more than four maps (Guerrilla Games promises 6 more will come in the future), the gorgeous visuals, frenetic pace and solid gunplay offer more than enough enjoyment.—written by DJRhude (@DJRhude)

XXL Rating: L (Good)

Intercept was reviewed for the PS4 on review code provided by Sony