Unit 13 promises all the excitement of SOCOM on a smaller scale.

Entitled Unit 13, the third-person shooter has been designed from the ground-up for Sony's swanky new portable system.

"Fast action, on-the-go gameplay was a key goal for the Unit 13 team," explained Zipper Interactive's Brian Soderberg on the PlayStation Blog.

"The game is designed for players to move quickly into the action, choosing from one of six Operatives with unique abilities to tackle 36 action-packed missions across nine unique locales. Missions come in a variety of sizes and difficulty. Some are smaller bite-sized battles; others are longer, more challenging, multi-objective missions that are a good test for any skilled shooter fan.

"As you make your way through the variety of missions, you unlock the right to take on the tougher High Value Target (HVT) enemy battles. After completing an HVT mission, you can share them with friends and nearby players through PlayStation Vita’s Near feature."

Community is a key component of Unit 13, with the PlayStation Vita's connectivity functions utilised to keep players up to date with leaderboard positions, daily challenges, unlocks and more. The game will also support co-op, with high-quality voice support enabled via the PlayStation Vita.

Unit 13 is expected to release "right around Vita launch".