GUNS, spaceships, dogfights and an invading race from another galaxy are all tightly packaged into Mercs: Gun4Hire, a multilevel game that takes the best from popular genres, such as first person shooters, space dogfighting and 3rd person run and gun and brings them all together in one explosive title for home computers.

Developed by StarFish Game Studios, the wholly owned subsidiary of D2D, players will be introduced to Ran Dragoone, a mercenary that runs smuggling shipments across the galaxy.

The game is set in the year 2496 and follows a century-long war with an invading force known as the Kilgethions. A peace treaty is finally signed by the superpowers of Earth and the Kilgethion leaders, although both side still hire freelancers for work that is considered to be outside of the treaty.

Ran is enlisted by an Earth-based fraction to raid a Kilgethion supply chain and steal some very rare ‘booty’ that the lead ship is carrying. During the mission Ran accidentally uncovers a plot by the Kilgethions to attack earth by constructing a battle fleet on the moons of three planets in our solar system.

“Aimed at the casual gamer, Mercs will appeal to anyone who loves a good sci-fi film or B-movie romp,” said Neil Cotton, Publishing Director at D2D Games.

“Mercs is the first game to come from our newly acquired game studio - StarFish. I’m truly impressed at the creativity of the studio as the storyline takes a classic space opera theme and melds different game genres together in a budget priced package!”

The game is scheduled for release during the latter part of the year (Q3) and will be competitively priced at RRP £9.99 and will be specially priced to the trade for good use in store campaigns.

“We’re utilising our ‘level play’ brand and ethic for this title as the player can select any of the 21 missions and play, replay or skip as they feel fit. We’re conscious that the casual gamer doesn’t want to spend weeks/months or years hammering a game through each level, but prefers to play for short periods. Level play encourages that type of gaming,” said Cotton.

D2D holds a global licence on Mercs, but will begin by publishing in the UK with other territories to follow very soon after.

A further 18 budget/campaign priced titles have been scheduled by StarFish Game Studios for release under the Level Play brand during the latter part of 2007.