Hawken is the multiplayer combat game many are leaning on to deliver them to the Mech Mecca they’ve longed prayed for. Face the cold, hard truth. It has been a while since gamers have seen a riveting multiplayer mech game. Armored Core V came closest to reinvigorating the genre, but still left much to be desired. Adhesive Games have put together a new kind of machine in Hawken, and it has already received some pretty rave reviews since its E3 debut.
How can so much speculation be derived from something so far from its release? In an interview with IGN, Khang Le (Adhesive Games’ co-founder) announced recently at Comic-Con that, “We have a whole universe for the player to grasp onto, including upcoming comic books, novels, a movie, an anime, and live action shorts.”
This wouldn’t be the first time gamers have seen a passionate producer’s eyes widen larger than their stomach. Peter Molyneux is well-known for his grandiose overhyping of the Fable titles. Each ended up being a great game, but not half as epic as he claimed (with very little multimedia content), so it’s a good thing Adhesive Games is backed by Unreal. Perhaps Hawken will see everything from movies to manga like Le claimed.
As for the game, there have been several announced modes of play. Included is the basic deathmatch, free-for-all deathmatch, and two more unique team modes that should lead to hours of excitement. Additional content is sure to be underway soon after its release. So many mech games have left a lasting bitterness in the mouths of gamers. Hopefully, Hawken will clean our palettes.
The official site specifically states Hawken is “initially to be released on PC.” I love tantalizing verbiage like this. It is initialliy to be released on PC. One could hope based on the success of the PC version, they’re already thinking of a console release. Choosing to run it on the Unreal 3 engine is a pretty good indication that, in the event of a console release, it will more than likely hit 360 and/or PS3.
Good news is best left for last, and this is possibly the greatest news of all; Hawken is going to be one of this year’s many free-to-play online multiplayers come 12/12/12. Stay tuned for more updates!
