The first-person shooter Hawken Reborn was released yesterday. One day after the start of Early Access, there are already over 900 reviews on Steam – only 21% of them are positive.
On May 16th we reported about Hawken Reborn and the content on MeinMMO. The character customization based on the huge fighting machines sounded particularly interesting. The announced story mode could also arouse curiosity. But the anticipation quickly evaporated.
How does Hawken Reborn disappoint? In the reviews on Steam, the new Free2Play shooter is showered with criticism. The story, which seems loveless to many players, is particularly criticized, as is the environment. Some found the graphics in the 2013 Hawken to be even better than today’s. “yoshi” writes in his review on Steam:
I don’t mind that it’s PvE only, but what bothers me is that nothing resembles the previous game. The movement, the sound, the UI, the animations, the weapons… everything is different and bland.
The display (HUD) is unintuitive and ugly compared to the original HUD. The movement and controls don’t feel like they used to when you could feel the mech’s weight.
“yoshi” on Steam
Watch the Hawken Reborn trailer below:
Hawken Reborn: Single Player Shooter Returns to Steam – Trailer
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It is also criticized that the characters in the comic-like cutscenes look as if they were generated by an AI. In fact, the facial features look different every time, especially the mouth and teeth.
Also, the woman seems to have changed her earrings for each scene:
Boring gameplay, quirky controls
The first opinions about Hawken Reborn were published on Reddit and they don’t sound much better. “hirmuolio” writes in a subreddit that the movement in the mech feels bad. The mouse speed seems to be bugged and remains too fast despite the change. The cockpit sways too much when moving, the turning speed is too fast.
The gameplay is boring. Enemies spawn, you kill them until they stop spawning. This is the only goal, nothing changes when you complete the actual mission goal. “hirmuolio” also found the level design to be boring. It is an open field with few structures.
I found the movement strange, the mech only moved shortly after I moved the mouse – and then much too quickly. The missions also seem completely random and the achievement of the goals is not very fulfilling. Even after the first task, everything seemed repetitive. Go fly, kill all opponents, come back, repair the mech, accept the next mission.
And someone was constantly chattering without my even knowing who all these people are and what their role is. During this, stressful music was playing, which reminded me of YouTube advertisements showing mobile games.
I find it unfavorable that the game only has English text and voice output. Even if you have a good knowledge of English, it’s difficult to follow the lyrics while you’re busy with other things.
Is there still hope for Hawken Reborn? Since the developers have planned Early Access for 12-18 months, it is quite possible that some things will change in the game. Whether the players still want to play the shooter is another question.
On the plus side, the shooter is free. With its almost 9 GB, it is also loaded quickly – and also quickly uninstalled again.
This shooter is also disappointing many fans because a popular mode has been removed.