For those that have been wondering what has happened to Hawken, well there’s now the chance to sign-up for what looks like a closed beta test. We’re assuming that this closed beta will be PC based (via Steam?) but this is entirely conjecture on our part. There’s also a Twitter feed you can follow for the beta test. What we do know is that some people will be playing the game on “12.12.12”. Catchy.
Update: Looks like this will indeed be a PC only title, published by Meteor Games. It also sounds like it will be freemium.
Lets see how it fairs against MWO.
Well I loved “Mechwarrior” back in the day, but personally feel that the early 90s gameplay and controls could do with a rethink to mix things up. Maybe taking a leaf or two from Juro Watari’s book: diverse weapons, dash movement, cancels and so on?
Apart from “Armored Core”, somebody is also yet to do a really nice engineering / construction component as well. I’m talking about being able to obsess over everything from the suspension in the legs through to modifying the firmware on your weapons. Make it really deep and fun to share knowledge through the player base.
How fun would it be to design your own mech and take it into the field! Blending the open -ended smarts of “Space Chem” with the style of Hajime Katoki or Yoji Shinkawa. Of course it’ll never happen!
— Chuan
Wait, it’s PC only now?! I thought they were developing it for consoles as well?? Say it ain’t so!
Quite excited for “Hawken” — the first trailer was superb and art direction & level design seems to be a cut above any mech game so far.
My only reservation from watching the developer videos is that perhaps they’re trying to go for a more basic “Mechwarrior” feel and not have heaps of add -ons and differentiation between robots.
As long as it’s on PC though perhaps it can become a kind of base on which people can mod the game further? The environments are perfect, add some more acrobatics and it’d be killer.
— Chuan