World Of Tanks creators reveal Steel Hunters, which isn't quite World Of Mechs

rockpapershotgun.com:

World of Tanks creators Wargaming are getting into the mech-bothering business with Steel Hunters - a new free-to-play Unreal Engine multiplayer shooter, in which Transformers-style juggernauts fight for control of an energy source called "Starfall" on smashable, post-apocalyptic maps. It’s just been announced at Wrasslin' Geoff’s Winter Hootenanny, aka the Game Awards, and there’s a 10 day PC playtest underway right now. Here’s a trailer.

I attended a presentation for Steel Hunters before the show, and am thus in a position to serve up some breathtakingly average insights. To get the obvious question out of the way: why not call it World Of Mechs? Wargaming didn't address this on the call, but I imagine part of the answer is that there's already a game called World Of Mechs, albeit for VR. But Wargaming also seem keen to put some distance between the games, and in practice, Steel Hunters isn't just World Of Tanks with some Michael Bay DLC.

The core Starfall Harvest mode is a mix of hero shooter, battle royale and extraction shooter, with six squads of two fighting to claim towers on rolling town-and-country maps full of destructible fixtures, levelling up as they do battle. In addition to enemy hunters, each map harbours fleets of flying drones who can be farmed for upgrade materials and consumables.

There are two broad types of upgrade material. Energy is your generic XP, allowing you to level up: there are five levels, with a new ability unlocked at level three. Upgrade cores, meanwhile, raise your shield, damage and health pools. There's the familiar, MOBA-ish question of whether to target other players early or hog the map perimeter and focus on farming and upgrades.

Beyond the race to upgrade, you've got a number of routes to victory. Claiming towers activates power-ups such as radar coverage or stat buffs, together with looting opportunities, so it's worth bagging one or two of these while chasing the drones. But you might decide to focus instead on