Zipper Interactive, developer of the acclaimed PS3-exclusive online first-person shooter MAG, has announced that the promised ‘Escalation Add-on Pack’ downloadable content (DLC) will become available starting in early November for US and European gamers.

On November 2nd in North America, and November 3rd in Europe, this new “three-faction gunplay whirlwind” DLC pack will go on sale on the PlayStation Store for $9.99/€7.99/£6.29.

To let you know more about MAG’s Escalation DLC, I’ll turn it over to Zipper Interactive’s senior community manager, Jeremy Dunham, who can surely explain the add-on better than I can:

“The Escalation add-on supports up to 96 players, or one 32-man platoon for each PMC, as a separate in-game mode that pits the forces of Raven, SVER, and Valor against each other at the same time. The aspirations for each PMC is to earn the requisite number of points before time runs out or, if time does expire, to have the most points overall. Whichever team meets this goal wins the map and additional Shadow War points.”

“Escalation gameplay is set up in two phases: For phase one, all three teams battle to hold the map’s A, B and C objectives — but when any of the three PMCs gains control of two of the three objectives, phase two begins. In this second phase, the original three objectives are locked and a new fourth objective (D) opens up. Now, the PMC that forced the phase shift must defend objective D against both attacking groups as long as possible; if D is lost, then play reverts back to phase one again and the war continues on until we have a winner or time runs out.

“Escalation offers three completely different environments (maps) to the MAG universe, including the volcanic beaches ‘Isla de Magma,’ the mountainous ‘Silverback Ridge,’ and the desert wasteland of ‘Radiant Barrens.’

“As an added bonus, our new add-on pack isn’t just made up of new maps – there are also nine previously-unavailable weapons we’re throwing into the mix too:”

• Raven: Gotha Elite (Assault Rifle) | KP21 (Machine Gun) | Kinmark SRS (Sniper Rifle)
• SVER: Tamsen MK2 (Assault Rifle | Ariet SFW (Machine Gun) | Rubakho SVR (Sniper Rifle)
• Valor: M31 CIR (Assault Rifle) | M245 (Machine Gun) | Sentinel M421 (Sniper Rifle)

Zipper Interactive is celebrating the release of the Escalation DLC for MAG with two special price offers for current (and would-be) MAG players in the US, comprising the following:

• Interdiction Add-on Pack: Now $4.99 (US); reduced from original price of $9.99 (US)
• MAG Starter Kit: $14.99 (US): An almost $30 (US) value and everything new MAG users could want: Interdiction and Escalation Add-on packs, a 30-day trial for MAG character slots B and C, six official MAG PS3 avatars that sport Raven, SVER, and Valor characters and badges, and three dynamic PS3 themes (one for each PMC).

You can have a look at a batch of newly released screenshots for the MAG Escalation DLC below, and browse through El33tonline’s previous coverage of MAG for more information: