Stylish mech shooter Hawken returning with a free-to-play PvE game

rockpapershotgun.com:

Five years after competitive multiplayer mech shooter Hawken shut down, a new game will invite us back to stomp around in its scrappy mechs. Announced last night by developers and publishers 505 Games, the free-to-play Hawken Reborn will launch into early access tomorrow. This time, it's a PvE game, with story missions plus open patrol zones to explore and complete jobs. I was enamoured with the jetdashing scrappy mechs and greeble-covered apartment blocks of the first game but always wished it had a singleplayer or co-op campaign, so I'm certainly curious about this.

Hawken Reborn will pop us into the cockpits of stompy little mechs to blast through story missions (six available at first, with more to follow) and patrol zones (one at first). Along the way, we'll upgrade mechs with weapons and power-ups and such. In those patrol zones, the blurb says, we'll get to take on Radio Missions to earn resources, though the zone will get harder the longer we're out, and we risk losing goodies if we die.

It sounds like Hawken Reborn will be singleplayer-only at first, with cooperative multiplayer arriving by the time it leaves early access. The devs expect early access to last 18 months, with the first phase "focusing on polishing the game and optimizing the gameplay and combat experience while improving critical elements like the UI, enemy interactions, and more." Then they'll move more into new content, including new missions and mechs.

Hawken Reborn launches onto Steam Early Access on Wednesday the 17th of May. It'll be free-to-play, both in early access and at full launch. No word yet on how friendly/generous/frustrating/obtrusive/loathsome that F2P monetisation might be.

The original Hawken had a troubled life. After wowing