Killzone: Shadow Fall's multifunctional Owl drone revealed

Killzone: Shadow Fall, the upcoming PlayStation 4 launch title from developer Guerrilla Games, will include a touch-controlled personal attack drone called the Owl, according to a post on the game's official blog.

The Owl includes several modes and is designed as an "advanced hovering attack drone used exclusively by the Shadow Marshals to give them all kinds of tactical abilities in the field," according to lead designer Eric Boltjes. "It attaches itself onto the Shadow Marshal’s suit until he gives it an order. When damaged, the Owl automatically returns and regenerates health until it receives an order again."

Players will control the Owl with the PS4 controller's touchpad and can switch between Attack Mode to target a group of enemies or a single enemy, Zipline Mode for quick traversal, Stun Mode for an area-of-effect zap that disables nearby electronics and Shield Mode that protects a Shadow Marshal with a front-facing shield.

According to Boltjes, the idea for the Owl grew out of a desire to give players more control.

"We wanted to give the player more control over buddies in our game, and we quickly gravitated towards utilizing our futuristic theme to create something very technologically advanced and also extremely useful in the field," he said. "It was important that it was easy to use in the fray of battle and have suitable abilities for every type of situation the game throws at you, on top of all the other abilities/weapons the Shadow Marshal has at his disposal."

For more on Killzone: Shadow Fall, you can check out a gallery of screenshots from its February announcement and its E3 2013 trailer.