Hawken Reborn Early Entry Impressions On Steam: It Sucks

Hey keep in mind when lots of people acquired excited that cult mech shooter Hawken was getting back from the lifeless? That was Monday! Now it’s Wednesday and I’m unhappy to say the thrill has been very short-lived.

Hawken Reborn, which is free to obtain and in Early Entry however can also be additionally charging for microtransactions, has launched in concerning the roughest means conceivable. On Monday I voiced a small concern after seeing Reborn’s launch trailer that “the perimeters appear to have been sanded off the sport’s aesthetic”; after enjoying it I don’t understand how this recreation is even set in the identical universe.

Hawken was a recreation made most well-known by its visuals, which weren’t solely technically spectacular, they had been additionally closely impressed by the kitbash stylings of Maschinen Krieger. Hawken Reborn’s visuals look to have been impressed by a free-to-play cellular shooter, and it’s laborious discovering any widespread floor between the unique’s rusted, bristling look and…no matter that is:

This jarring discrepency between what we keep in mind and what’s being provided right now continues by means of into the sport itself. That is what Hawken seemed like in 2016:

And that is what Hawken Reborn appears like in 2023:

Yikes. Maybe most damning is a number of the artwork utilized in Hawken Reborn’s static cutscenes, which elevate some questions. Like…why is she holding that iPad the other way up?

And why do these nearly similar angles of the identical character look so completely different? Particularly her tooth? And why do her earring designs change each time you see them? 

Would a human artist have neglected these items? I requested publishers 505 Video games, through each an e mail to a PR consultant and a group rep on Reddit, whether or not AI artwork was used within the recreation’s growth (and in addition who, precisely, the event staff are behind this venture, because it’s listed solely as a “505 Video games” title on Steam). At time of publishing I’ve acquired no response from both.

Anyway, what concerning the recreation itself? Additionally sucks! Hawken’s trademark factor was a swaying view of your cockpit, which gave gamers the phantasm they had been piloting an enormous, lumbering mech. Hawken Reborn tries to repeat this, however in a means that’s barely sickening to need to always sit by means of, and it’s PvE ranges are a meandering slog by means of barren wastelands attempting to shoot tiny and insignificant human enemies and static rocket turrets, a monotony damaged up solely by the occasional bullet-sponge enemy mech piloted by the stupidest AI conceivable.

On Wednesday evening the sport had a “Principally Adverse” score on Steam, with gamers hating all the things from the sport’s microtransactions (that are for precise in-game tools, not cosmetics) to the repetitive missions. Essentially the most helpful one is probably this, from Shard:

That is the Hawken IP being utilized by the writer to decorate a shallow and generic Future clone that regardless of not having any multiplayer in the intervening time, already has premium forex packs being bought for it proper below the Play Recreation button on the shop web page (which you’ve already seen). It lacks the wonderful artwork path of Hawken and as an alternative combines the acquainted Hawken mechs with probably the most bland fashionable sci-fi artstyle on the market. Graphically, it manages to look worse than the unique, a recreation that got here out in 2013. I get that it’s “”Early Entry””, however with the state it’s in everyone knows why there was actually no public data about this till 36 hours earlier than launch.

Issues aren’t any higher over on Reddit, both. I do know the sport is in Early Entry, that means there’s room for enchancment. That’s why that is an impressions piece, and never a evaluate. However the reality its publishers noticed match to launch it in a state like this, trying like this and enjoying like this, and have the nerve to cost cash for microtransactions regardless of all of it…doesn’t bode properly!