HAWKEN is a multiplayer first person shooter for PC that places you inside a mechanized war machine on the battlefield of a dystopian world called Illal. With strategic, fast-paced gameplay, HAWKEN features incredible alien landscapes, customizable and upgradable mechs, and dynamic experiences across multiple competitive game modes.
User reviews:
Recent:
Mostly Positive (104 reviews) - 76% of the 104 user reviews in the last 30 days are positive.
Overall:
Very Positive (17,601 reviews) - 85% of the 17,601 user reviews for this game are positive.
Release Date: Feb 14, 2014

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Early Access Game

Get instant access and start playing; get involved with this game as it develops.

Note: This Early Access game is not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

“We are extremely happy to now offer HAWKEN as an Early Access title on Steam! We've been working hard fixing bugs, addressing feedback from the community and polishing up our design as we push forward towards our final release. HAWKEN is in the very final stages of BETA so you may notice a few bugs but we're ready for an expanded audience to try the game and have fun! HAWKEN is Free to Play so don't be shy about giving the game a try or recruiting your friends and family!

Please note that a pilot account is required to play HAWKEN. Use the following address to create a pilot account and you will be playing in no time at all: http://www.playhawken.com/enlist

We currently have 2 bundles available for purchase which offer players great game content at great discounts. We have a new lower price on the Prosk Starter Bundle and just launched the Mercenary Bundle which saves you an approximate 60% off the cost of purchasing each item individually!

If you were a player of HAWKEN previous to our presence on Steam please note that we are no longer be using our own launcher for the game but instead will be using Steam as a sole content delivery method. As a result we recommend that players uninstall any previous versions of the game before downloading the game here to avoid any potential conflicts. All your progress is stored remotely so you won't have to worry about losing anything!

We're excited to now bring HAWKEN to even more players and look forward to seeing you on the battlefield!”
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Recent updates View all (164)

June 20

Dev Update - Q&A

Now that we're home from E3 I've put together the questions you have and had the Devs take a pass at answering. I hope this information helps put your minds at ease that the PC is still going to be around. We're not replacing it with the consoles, the consoles are a new addition to the Hawken family. Click here to read the full Q&A/

67 comments Read more

June 13

Dev Update - Catching Up! Coming Soon - PS4 & Xbox One!

The E3 Announcement for Hawken on Play Station 4 and Xbox One is finally released!  We hope you're just as excited as we are about the news. 
 
Ever wondered just what was going on for the past year or so? We figured a high level timeline might be of interest :) 
 
The long and short of it is that the console port is a fantastic addition to Hawken. It brings the gameplay we all love to a very wide audience, and we’ve all kinds of good plans for the future. The PC platform is going see all kinds of benefits; we’re in the process of getting all platforms up to feature parity, and from that point on, the Illal sky is the limit.
 
March 2015 – Reloaded Games acquires Hawken assets

This was the big rescue-style emergency recovery action to make sure Hawken didn’t disappear.

June 2015 – Console port starts to ramp up
 
505 Games happened to notice when we acquired the Hawken assets. They pretty quickly mentioned they thought a console port would make a lot of sense, and so after some negotiation time and some exploratory research, an agreement was signed that put Hawken on the road to becoming a console title. Prior to then, we had to sort of remain in a bit of a holding pattern, because depending on the possible console port work, the nature of immediate development efforts would have been drastically different. This is probably when you may have noticed capnjosh becoming a little less-than-precise in his communications ;)

July 2015 – Initial code merge for PlayStation 4 port
 
This involved merging some 26,000 files. I'm sure you can imagine how mind-numbing that can be. Our tech director had done this a number of times before, so when he finished, the game was surprisingly close to running. Things generally compiled, but, as you can guess, it becomes a hugely painful process of addressing every compilation problem, adding more logging, iterating, and generally going into super-focus mode for hours and hours and days and days. If you don’t mind doing that, then, well game dev may be for you.

August 2015 – First raw PlayStation builds
 
This phase took the longest, since it had to set things up to work with the upcoming Xbox One merge. It also was where we had to also port the Hawken-specific online subsystems; this proved to pretty time-consuming on its own. All throughout, we made sure it ran on PC, which helped with testing overall, and it also allowed for faster dev work for the rest of the team. 
 
September 2015 – Xbox One code merge and first builds

During this process we had to upgrade to DirectX 11. We had to merge 3 different rendering pipelines into one so future development could be faster. 

October 2015 –  Significant playable builds for console. UI starts to become a challenging little beast
 
Here’s where the development started to get interesting. Talk about complex.

November 2015 – UI proves to be far more of a problem than anticipated.

The problem essentially boiled down to pretty old tech debt. The UI code had had to be structured to handle a lot more than ActionScript 2 was really well-suited to handle, so there were added layers of complexity that made work very slow for people unfamiliar with all the context behind where and why things were coded the way they were. Clean, well-engineered code, yes, but very complex.
 
December 2015 – Started a UI rebuild; winter illness

The idea behind this was that we could not get satisfactory console controller input. Shifting focus between all the elements on the existing UI was proving near impossible. So, we sort of had no choice but to try rebuilding a new UI framework using all the experience of past console port work and current best practices. This process was very time consuming, and I’m sure our publisher can emphasize how worrisome it all was ;)
 
January 2016 – Revert to old UI with help of original U programmer; framerate gets better
 
Out of nowhere, Jay Elwanger happened to become available. He knew how and why code was the way it was and he loved Hawken. He was able to do a proof-of-concept UI update that indicated we did not have to scrap the entire old UI. This work allowed us to put focus back on the engine-specific porting work.
 
February 2016 – Services layer updates, continue UI, reschedule launch dates

We upgraded frameworks for the back-end services, we improved handling, created all the server-to-server communications systems required for console authentication and purchases. Kind of a complex bundle of things there, let me tell ya. Good thing is it’s all fairly reusable and pretty clean.
 
March 2016 – More services updates, hosting and deployment adjustments
 
The services layer saw upgrades to things like processing efficiency, security, and compression of data in transit over the network. Hosting systems and the services layer had to updated to handle the now-multiple platforms per environment. Deployment systems, build servers, gameserver hosts, and services machines all saw changes. And all the while we had to keep in mind how we can ensure the live PC game is supported.

April 2016 – First certification checks on Xbox One
 
The Xbox team at Microsoft was excited to see Hawken on the Xbox One, and they actually did a few pre-certification reviews for us. And then they even had an expert do an analysis of some PIX captures. You know when you get to hear a true expert on some topic sort of explain what they’re seeing, what they suspect could be a cause, and then some historical background on why something could be happening? Yeah, there are some really smart people over at Microsoft.
 
May 2016 – First certification submissions, massive bug fixing

Having a game build in certification testing is nerve-wracking. You go for several days fearing the worst – dozens of Condition For Resubmission items (in Xbox parlance) or Must Fix items (in Play Station testing terms). The stakes are high at this point ; it takes a week or two from the time you do final commits for a build to when that build is done with submission testing. Getting fixes retested and approved can be that long plus the time it takes to find and fix the issues. It was in May that we lost someone who had become a great friend and huge Hawken supporter, Jay Elwanger. We were all stunned and we still miss him. He loved Hawken, and he poured some fantastic work into this game. I’m proud to have known him.

Summer 2016 – Launch, relaunch, and updates
 
There will undoubtedly be some cleanup and fixes required after the console launch, but during all that we will be preparing for the PC relaunch. Why didn’t we do the PC first? A commitment to launch the console version first and the desire to solidify that release before we tackle the task of making sure all the existing data in the PC game is handled right. We also have what we expect to performance improvements, a new patcher, and the new faster services layer. Most importantly, we have structured the project so that any development efforts apply across all platforms, so once we have all the platforms up to the same version, all future development should proceed in lock-step.
 
Future development targets, roadmap, and more will be released over the coming weeks.

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Reviews

“It's the type of experience that gets under your skin, making you want to come back for more.”
-IGN

“Perfectly balanced mech warfare”
-Polygon

“HAWKEN is everything I ever wanted in a mech shooter”
-Kotaku

Key Features

  • Fast Mech Gameplay: War is a Machine. Pilot hulking death machines and use massive weaponry to destroy your foes.
  • 18 Unique Mechs: Determine your method of mass destruction. Choose from 18 unique classes including the lightweight assassin like Reaper, the medium blitz mode Raider and the heavy tank-like Incinerator. Each mech is unique with their own special abilities, stats and weapon loadouts.
  • 6 Game Modes: Play cooperatively or competitively in the 6 game modes available. Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Missile Assault, Siege, Co-Op Bot Destruction and Co-Op TDM.
  • Stunning Dystopian Environments: Experience a planet in the depths of war. Battle across decaying cityscapes, desert towns, post-apocalyptic wastelands, jungle outposts and secret weapons facilities.
  • Loadout Customization: Customize your playstyle with a wide array of internals that offer passive improvements, as well as offensive, defensive and functional items. There's also a plethora of cosmetic enhancements to truly personalize your mech.
  • Arsenal of Weapons: Choose your weapons wisely. Massive sniper rifles, rotary cannons, ballistic spike guns, fireball launchers, corrosive chemical weapons and dual mode explosive launchers are just a few of your options for ordnance.
  • Variety of Items: Use the right tool for the job. Deploy a hologram to fool enemy mechs, use an EMP to shutdown their core systems and then launch a high explosive grenade or detonator for their fiery demise. Choose from 12 unique items which offer a variety of gameplay.
  • Enhanced NVIDIA PhysX: Take your battle experience to the next level with the latest in NVIDIA’s PhysX technology. Explosion and particle effects are incredibly more detailed to provide the optimal visual experience of mech warfare.
  • Oculus Rift Support: Fully immerse yourself in mech battles with gameplay support for the Oculus Rift.

About This Game



HAWKEN is a multiplayer first person shooter for PC that places you inside a mechanized war machine on the battlefield of a dystopian world called Illal. With strategic, fast-paced gameplay, HAWKEN features incredible alien landscapes, customizable and upgradable mechs, and dynamic experiences across multiple competitive game modes.


HAWKEN features 6 game modes: Team Deathmatch, Co-Op Bot Destruction, Missile Assault, Siege, Deathmatch and Co-Op TDM. Each mode offers a unique gameplay experience that requires a different approach and hones a separate set of skills.

  • Team Deathmatch
    Two teams of six group together and battle as a team in a race to 40 kills. Fighting as a group and knowing when to play defensively is essential to survival.

  • Co-Op Bot Destruction
    Team up with three other pilots for 25 waves of increasingly intense encounters against computer controlled mechs and attack drones. Every fifth wave is led by one or more elite boss mechs that can’t be defeated alone. Move as a group, plan your attack, and spend your resources wisely to eek out a victory against all odds. Co-Op Bot Destruction is currently available on the Facility and Front Line maps, each featuring a unique set of enemies.

  • Missile Assault
    Split your team of six into groups and compete over three missile silos spread across the map. Capture a silo and maintain control over it to launch missiles against the enemy team’s base ship. Control all three missile silos to do bonus damage and end the battle even sooner. Flexibility and effective use of items are the key to destroying the enemy base before they destroy yours.

  • Siege
    Collect EU from two energy sources in neutral territory and return them to base to launch an attack ship at the enemy base. Fight for control over the Anti Aircraft battery in the center of the map to keep your ship from being shot down before it reaches and destroys the enemy base. There is no time limit in Siege, but every ship you launch is more powerful than the last.

  • Deathmatch
    Watch your radar and be careful not to expose yourself until you have the advantage in an intense free-for-all battle. The player with the highest score after 10 minutes wins.

  • Co-Op TDM
    Team up with 5 other pilots for online TDM against computer controlled mechs. If you want to jump into a match and have some fun without concerning yourself with human opponents, then this is the mode for you!


HAWKEN features a wide range of customization options that allow you to craft a unique look and equipment loadout that other players will remember.

  • Cosmetic
    Strike fear in your enemies and confidence in your allies with unique trim colors & paint patterns, chassis parts, thrusters, and repair drones. Taunt defeated opponents and make your teammates laugh with comic mech emotes and deployable hologram generators. Make yourself at home in your mech by using cockpit decorations, custom HUD colors and different combinations of primary and secondary reticles!

  • Practical
    Customize your play style and abilities with passive internals and deployable items. Internals take one to three of six available internal slots and range in effect from giving your mech a unique ability, such as dashing or doing a 180 spin in mid-air, to temporarily boosting damage or healing each time you gain a kill or assist. Items can serve as an additional weapon (e.g. EMPs, Grenades), a deployable piece of equipment that helps you and your teammates (e.g. Portable Scanner, Shield) or one that disrupts your enemies (e.g. Machine Gun or Rocket Turret, Radar Scrambler). Select a loadout that matches your play style to defeat your enemies quickly, support your team, or control tactically important areas of the map.

Game Guide



HAWKEN offers pilots numerous mechs in three different weight classes that fill a variety of distinct roles on the battlefield. Find the mechs that match your play style and study the strengths and weaknesses of enemy mechs in our comprehensive mech guide.
http://www.playhawken.com/game-guide/mechs


HAWKEN has numerous maps to explore. But you can’t always enjoy the scenery--or get your bearings--while boosting away from enemies. Our Map Guide includes interactive maps showing major points of interest for every game mode on every map, plus lore, screenshots, gameplay tips, and more.
http://www.playhawken.com/game-guide/maps


Every mech starts with one primary weapon. You can purchase two additional primary weapons in the garage. You can purchase the alternate primary weapon at mech rank 3 and the prestige weapon at mech rank 5. You can swap your primary weapon in the Garage or in the Staging Area before a match or between respawns. Each mech only has one secondary weapon. They cannot be switched out for alternatives like primary weapons. However, all secondary weapons possess a special ability that provides additional functionality. Use the middle mouse button to activate that ability.
http://www.playhawken.com/game-guide/weapons


HAWKEN lets you change your equipment to customize and upgrade your mechs. You can equip a variety of useful items and deploy them in battle to gain an edge over your opponents.
http://www.playhawken.com/game-guide/items

System Requirements

    Minimum:
    • OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 (32bit or 64bit)
    • Processor: 2Ghz Dual Core
    • Memory: 3 GB RAM
    • Graphics: 512 MB Graphics Card Supporting DirectX 9.0c and Shader Model 3.0 (NVIDIA 9800 GTX or AMD HD 5670)
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 5 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: 1280 x 720 or Higher Resolution
    Recommended:
    • OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7 (64bit)
    • Processor: 3Ghz Dual Core
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: 1024MB Graphics Card Supporting DirectX 9.0c and Shader Model 3.0 (NVIDIA GTX 460 or AMD HD 6850)
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 5 GB available space
Customer reviews
Customer Review system updated Sept. 2016! Learn more
Recent:
Mostly Positive (104 reviews)
Overall:
Very Positive (17,601 reviews)
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9,935 reviews match the filters above ( Very Positive)
Most Helpful Reviews  In the past 30 days
9 of 10 people (90%) found this review helpful
3 people found this review funny
Not Recommended
151.4 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: September 15
This game was once amazing. I used to only play Hawken out of all my steam games, but as time went on players left. Then for a long while it seemed like the devs left. Now Reloaded bought the game and went straight to work porting it to xbone and PlayStation. It would have been nice if they polished the original game on pc first. I see on r/hawken often people asking if the game is worth getting back into. Often the answer is a depressing no. I loved this game, I wish I go back to when it was in alpha and the community was full of team players and enthusiasm. But alas time is a fickle ♥♥♥♥♥.

I loved you hawken but I can't do this anymore, we're through. *cries*
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
10 of 13 people (77%) found this review helpful
Not Recommended
25.9 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: September 19
An enjoyable game when the teams are balanced which, sadly, isn't very often.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
10 of 15 people (67%) found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
Not Recommended
3.2 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: September 12
Error 51C58D8A
Online service unavailable

This game was so beautiful.

(2016 09 12) My attempt to connect just failed.

Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
2 of 2 people (100%) found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
Recommended
21.0 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: September 25
This game, is extremely fun, has an incredibly good soundtrack, definetely one of my favorite games, probably the best mech game out there (besides Mechwarrior Online, although I didn't find that much enjoyment in it) Two major cons though, one is team balancing. Sometimes you have good teammates, other times you have to carry, very hard. I'd say I'm one of the best pilots in Hawken, but every once in a while you run into someone called "A_CE" Pray that you have good teammates. And the other is well, a dead community. The community was great, and I guess still is, but not very many people play it anymore, which is a shame. Hopefully it will be brought back to life. Currency is a bit tricky to earn, and it's not p2w at all. It's only 3gbs, please, download and give it a try, I'll even play with you.

+by the way boris, ♥♥♥♥ off.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
1 of 1 people (100%) found this review helpful
Not Recommended
19.8 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: September 24
mind you i would of still said yes but apperently not touching the game for about ayear made my one mech unuseable with the server claiming test drive is over I ain't testing it i bought the dang thing.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
1 of 1 people (100%) found this review helpful
Recommended
5.0 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: September 24
A game that doesn't get as much praise as it deserves. An awesome experience with stunning graphics however, it someones manages to be runable on even the toastiest of toasters. I would say that it is Pay2Win however, a HUGE part of the game is skill. I have not put a single dollar towards the game and I can still kick ♥♥♥. It also has a play style for every robot so you customize until you get it just right. A rocket launcher for long range and then a minigun to chew through metal robots for close is how I play.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
1 of 1 people (100%) found this review helpful
Recommended
2.3 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: September 28
if your willing to take massive learning curves and also grind for hours on end then this should be enjoyable for you. I was not able to contiue due to having busy scedules but hey, might return someday to that rusty old mechsuit.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
1 of 1 people (100%) found this review helpful
Recommended
2,344.3 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: October 3
Best Mech-FPS game ever created. Currently owned by the worst Dev possible

Game - 9.5/10
Adhensive = 7.5/10
Reloaded Games = 2/10
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
1 of 1 people (100%) found this review helpful
1 person found this review funny
Not Recommended
0.6 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: September 29
It doesn't feel like you are in a 10 ton mech. This is just a FPS with robot skins. I'll have to stick with the Mechwarrior series as they handle awkwardly like huge machines.

It isn't a bad game, just not the mech experience in my opinion. If i want to play an FPS, i'll play any number of top notch ones available. If i wan't to experience mech fights I'll play Mechwarrior.
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
1 of 1 people (100%) found this review helpful
Recommended
19.5 hrs on record
Early Access Review
Posted: September 18
its a good game shame its dead, wait times over 30 min :(
Was this review helpful? Yes No Funny
Recently Posted
YOUR_FATHER
108.3 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 10
VERY GOOD GAME
Helpful? Yes No Funny
BigB00s29120
1.9 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 9
Top strategy game :)
Helpful? Yes No Funny
𝓐 𝓛𝓲𝓽𝓽𝓵𝓮 𝓢𝓷𝓸𝓻𝓵𝓪𝔁
17.7 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 9
Lots of fun, definately not something you can comprimise on having a mouse and keyboard on. I tried using a controller, and i got destroyed- even with the Steam Controller.
Helpful? Yes No Funny
Amen(TF2COS)
0.1 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 9
To be general, it doesn't even work.
Helpful? Yes No Funny
Kullazerdude
0.3 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 8
I wish there was a way to toggle keybinds, because otherwise I can't get past the tutorial. Probably something with my keyboard, but otherwise, great game.
Helpful? Yes No Funny
KB | trade.tf
1.1 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 8
its higly addictig i first played it on my friends PS4 and i loved it ever since
Helpful? Yes No Funny
ImpoliteCorn420
191.1 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 8
What did you do to Hawken?? I loved the pc version before the update, but now my stats have been reset, i have to actually unlock deathmatch, siege, and missile assault with matches I've already done. I honestly don't like the new update, but I would love it if the developers would look at this and make the game more diverse instead of restricting certain game modes. I really love this game, although I would still recommend it.
Helpful? Yes No Funny
Prince of Barkness
1.0 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 8
I remember playing this game a lot before it was a Steam exclusive, and it was a lot of fun then. This game had an enormous amount of potential - tight controls, varied mechs, several gamemodes, a lot of customization, and hardly any competition. Unfortunately, as time went on, it seems the developers abandoned the game and sold it off to another company, who started porting it to consoles instead of adding more polish or content to the PC version first, and the playerbase also drifted away. There were only three games on the NA server that had people on them, which is a terrible shame, because this, or at least was, a good game.
Helpful? Yes No Funny
Coffeymug
1.7 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 7
A really good mech game. It brings me back to playing on the original xbox.
Helpful? Yes No Funny
READY TO GET RE FUCKED
1.2 hrs
Early Access Review
Posted: October 7
5/10 Not what it shouldve been
Helpful? Yes No Funny