BIA storming PSPs

Today Ubisoft announced that it is bringing its popular World War II franchise Brothers in Arms to the PlayStation Portable. The new game, Brothers in Arms D-Day, is being developed by Ubisoft Shanghai (Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Double Agent) and Gearbox Software, maker of the console and PC installments in the series.

Brothers in Arms D-Day will feature the same squad-based first-person shooter action as its console counterparts, even though the FPS genre has so far fared poorly on the PSP. However, Ubisoft claims that D-Day will have "all-new controls specific to the PSP system," which presumably means the control scheme has been optimized for the handheld's one-thumbstick layout.

Brothers in Arms D-Day follows the protagonists of the previous two Brothers in Arms console games: Road to Hill 30 and Hell's Highway. Players will strap on the boots of paratroopers Sergeant Matt Baker and Corporal Joe "Red" Hartsock, who were both real-life members of the US Army's elite 101st Airborne Division. The game will take place during the events of the Allied invasion of Normandy and will follow Baker's and Hartsock's squads to the French towns of Carentan and St. Sauveur.

Brothers in Arms D-Day will offer ad hoc wirelesss co-op play through a dozen different skirmish missions. The game will also offer new weapons, such as the bazooka, mortar, and MG42 machine gun. GameSpot will have more details on the game, which is set to ship this fall, as they become available.