SOCOM creator crowdsources his next team-shooter game with H-Hour: World’s Elite

The original military-shooter game SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals earned some dedicated fans on the PlayStation 2, but Sony cut loose its team after poor sales of the fourth title in the series. You could say SOCOM was a victim of the Battlefield-Call of Duty arms race in video game development. But David Sears, the creative director on the original SOCOM, wants to bring the hardcore shooting game back with a Kickstarter crowdfunded project called H-Hour: World’s Elite.

Sears has formed a small team at SOF Studios in Southern Pines, N.C., to create what he calls the “spiritual successor to the original SOCOM” title. He is trying to raise $200,000 in a Kickstarter campaign that has five days to go. As of last night, the Kickstarter had pledges of $188,114. That may sound like a tiny budget for a first-person shooter video game, which could easily take a hundred people more than two years and $30 million to build.