HAWKEN REBORN News

Hawken Reborn Developer Blog #3 - Baselines

Now that we’ve had a chance to dust ourselves off from the Hard Landing that inaugurated Hawken Reborn’s Early Access, our team has been at work pushing updates and doing deep dives into all of the feedback that we’ve been seeing.

In the six weeks since launch, our priorities have been focused on tackling major game breaking bugs and optimizing pain points that lead to a negative overall experience with the current game. These changes came by way of three “hotfix” patches that addressed soft locking bugs, combat balancing, refactoring difficulty curves, resource farming adjustments, and a slew of other gears that needed retuning. As of version 0.1.0.3, the game is in a pretty good position with a few lingering bugs, but we’re overall happy by how stable things have been this early into production.

In terms of feedback, we’ve been pouring over the vast amounts of posts across Hawken social channels, Steam reviews, analytics, and direct community conversations to establish some insightful baselines to guide our development decisions. Many thanks to everyone who has engaged with us and shared their thoughts! Here are just a few of those baselines that we’d like to point out.

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK
Our number one priority is engaging with all Hawken players and the amount of feedback that we’ve seen has been immense to say the least. We’ve seen the impassioned critical walls of #forumposting and just on our Discord Server alone, there are over 200+ feedback posts made by players. While we can’t comment on every single one, our community team has been working behind the scenes to flag them with our development team and have started to tag the feedback in our Discord Server to give players some visibility into how we’re sorting their posts.

STEAM REVIEWS
As of today, our Steam reviews sit at a “Mostly Negative” rating from 1,591 reviewers. At surface value, that’s a pretty disheartening number and obviously something that’s of concern as it detracts potential players from wanting to try the game. On the other hand, it’s also a pretty impressive number of reviews considering we intentionally pursued one exclusive interview before launch so it goes without saying that the Hawken community is a passionate bunch.

Just like playing Hawken Reborn, if you look past the current review rating and take the game for a test drive, you’ll find some interesting things that point in a positive direction. Here’s what we’ve gleaned from the reviewers.

Of the 1,591 reviews giving Hawken Reborn a 23% Mostly Negative rating, 606 players (38% of total reviews) have played more than 1 hour of Hawken Reborn. Those 1+ hour players have rated the game at a 39% Mostly Negative rating, but just 1% shy of Steam’s “Mixed” 40% threshold. That’s a 16% difference just by playing the game an hour or longer. As we dive into the longer play times, the numbers look more promising and help surface other additional insights.

We have other back end data to help analyze the above, but looking at these public reviewer numbers, we know that players who spend 2 hours or more in the game will average in the “Mixed” rating. That to us is a playtime milestone that we need to improve since the current heart of Hawken Reborn resides in its Patrol Mode gameplay loop that’s only made available after playing the first 4 of 6 Story Arc missions during our First Time User Experience (FTUE). Our data shows that the median to this Patrol Mode threshold is approximately 3 hrs 15 mins so you can see that we have a significant time barrier that we need to truncate.

The stats also shows that as players approach the 5+ hours mark, we get closer to the “Mostly Positive” 70% Steam rating and starts pulling back around the 9+ hour mark. This leads us to believe that players are having fun with the game after they familiarize themselves with it, but are likely running out of fresh fun factor sustaining content to play beyond that 9+ hour mark.

Some of our more acrobatic pilots have already gotten a preview of our upcoming Zone B area and while it’s not ready for show time just yet, know that we are actively working on getting new content out to players so that you can stretch your gameplay experience outside of our current Zone A Refuge area.

FIRST TIME USER EXPERIENCE (FTUE) MENTALITY SHIFT
In the course of designing our Hawken Reborn FTUE, we focused on building an introduction to the game to help onboard all types of players and not specifically built for those only familiar with the original Hawken. This is attributed to the game’s PVE pivot making it a new game for everyone. Now that we’ve gone public, it’s obvious to us that for most gamers, piloting a Hawken mech and acclimating to a looter shooter environment isn’t their first joyride. Due to this key learning, we’re making a concerted effort to decouple our Story Arc FTUE as a requirement to unlock Patrol Mode.

What this means is that after our next patch, all you’ll need to get into the Patrol Mode is to complete the first Story Arc Mission “Starfall” which will take approximately 20 minutes and gives you the choice to play the rest of our Story Arc or go straight into Patrol Mode with the first base Apex platform to looter shoot at your own pace. We’re hoping that this change will let players freely test drive Hawken Reborn and see how much enjoyment potential they can have.

PATCH VERSION 0.1.1.0
We mentioned the 3 hotfixes that were released previously and with the much larger change to the FTUE and Patrol Mode changes, the next update will come by way of an actual “Patch”. This is an internal term for larger updates and Hawken Reborn Patch Version 0.1.1.0 is going to be that first of these large updates. This patch also means that we’re going to focus a significant amount of development efforts in the trenches and less on hotfixes which means our previous 2 week cadence is going to take a lot longer for this next patch. We’re currently estimating it to release sometime in August.

In the future, we hope to not have such a long lull in between big patches, but think of it like the Great British Video Game Development Bake Off. We fired all cylinders on high to get the hot fixes out during this initial cook, but now it’s time to dial it back down to medium so we can ensure Patch 0.1.1.0 is properly developed without burning our development team out.

QUALITY OF LIFE UPDATES
Other than the above mentioned changes to how quickly players can hop into Patrol Mode, the next patch will address a few other quality of life changes amongst its extensive list of patch notes that we’ll be publishing.

Threat Level Indicators
One of the biggest balancing acts in Hawken Reborn and a core component to its gameplay loop is Threat Level. Whether it’s Pilot, World, or Enemy Threat Level, this measure of difficulty is structured across all elements of our UI, crafting meta, and combat.

We spent the first weeks prioritizing how the game’s world scales up the Threat Levels as players hop into Patrol Mode and now that we’ve got a good base for this scaling, our next phase is to update the UI to better indicate how much of a risk a pilot wants to take. This information will be displayed in a dynamic HUD graphic at the top of your screen that will show your Threat Level relative to the zone’s Threat Level. With this critical information, you’ll know when you want to rush in guns blazing or head back home to avoid getting one shotted by enemies and risk losing your hard earned loot.

Patrol Mode World Building
Our current gameplay loop is Build mechs/weapons in the Hangar > Hop into Patrol Mode to farm loot & XP in an active battlefield > Head back to the Hangar to repair/upgrade/build > rinse & repeat. One balancing issue that currently exists in Patrol Mode is that periodically there isn’t an active mission or spawned enemies on the map to keep the action going.

In our next build, you’ll notice a stark increase in activities in the map with more instances of Random Encounters to occupy your time while waiting for missions to pop up. This should make things feel more like an active battlefield to ensure that there’s always something to shoot at to maximize your valuable time. We’ve also got other activities in the works, but will save those for a future update.

FREQUENTLY SEEN QUESTIONS
Before we wrapped up this third installment of our developer blog, we wanted to address a few questions that are still lingering amongst the community.

Can you make the original Hawken playable on PC again while you work on Hawken Reborn?
This was a topic we’ve seen since the beginning of Early Access and while we won’t go into the technical reasons why this isn’t a simple flip of the switch, we can discuss it from a practical perspective. In short, no, the original Hawken will not be made available to play on PC again. Not only does it cannibalize potential players from playing Hawken Reborn, but we have made a 100% commitment to Hawken Reborn’s development to continue to improve the game over time.

How big is the development team behind Hawken Reborn?
Our team has gradually scaled up during the development of Hawken Reborn to its current size of roughly 50 members. As the game evolves, so too will our team as we continue to bring in additional talents to support the title and have no plans of slowing down.

Why is there a store in Hawken Reborn when the game is this early in development?
Hawken Reborn’s Early Access is about testing ALL facets of the game and that includes the store. Since our first interview, we’ve always stated that our foundational philosophy around MTX is based on the premise that any item purchased from the store affecting core gameplay such as mechs and weapons can be obtained through gameplay with no inherent advantage.

Take for example our resident mech thicc boi, the Atlas that is in our store rotation. That mech’s blueprint is unlocked to all players who hit Pilot Level 7. Once a blueprint is unlocked, a player will need to farm schematics and use materials found in Patrol Mode to eventually craft their mech. The store acts as a way to shortcut getting an item quicker with no other advantage beyond avoiding the grind since both methods of obtaining the item will yield the same result.

Like many similar games in the market, this grinding element is and will continue to be an ever evolving part of the game’s core design. Our philosophy has always been that we want to be as generous as possible in terms of loot unlocks to avoid the perception of a heavy grind. In cases where this does happen such as the recent bugs resulting in the Impure Explosives scarcity, we’ll be actively working to address the issues head on.

That’s a wrap for our third installment of Hawken Reborn’s developer blog! If you’ve read down this far, you know that we’ve got a ton of work ahead of us and we look forward to sharing more news and eye candy in the future. Until then, be sure to follow us on our official social media channels and visit our official Hawken Reborn Discord Server to join the discourse with other pilots!

To stay up to date on all the latest Hawken Reborn news and connect with fellow pilots, join us at our official social media channels.

Discord: https://HWKN.link/Discord

Reddit: https://Reddit.com/r/HawkenReborn

Twitter: https://Twitter.com/HawkenReborn

Facebook: https://Facebook.com/HawkenReborn

Instagram: https://Instagram.com/HawkenReborn

YouTube: https://YouTube.com/@HawkenReborn

Hawken Reborn Patch Notes - Version 0.1.0.3

Hey Pilots,

We're back with another update to address a number of core known issues and bugs raised by the community. Make sure to drop by the Discord to leave any and all feedback you have for Hawken Reborn.

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Fixed Issues

Gameplay

Asteroid Drone’s excessive damage has now been significantly reduced
Aggro has been fixed on some passive infantry who did not fight back when being attacked by pilots
Heavy drones no longer enter an idle state in some instances

Patrol Mode

Zones with lower Threat Levels than the player's will catch up at an accelerated rate
Random encounter's Threat Level will increase with the zone's TL
Resource nodes have been adjusted to drop more explosives
Threat Level should no longer increase every two seconds after transferring items through the MTP
Certain instances of Threat Level increasing too quickly have been balanced

Quality of Life

The cursor should no longer clip outside of the game

UI / Text

Jetpacks will no longer display the weight stat in the hangar as it's no longer a contributing factor
Miscellaneous missing dialogue and hangar text has been fixed
Hitting Alt+Enter to toggle between windowed and full screen mode will now accurately display in the Settings page

Misc.

During the repair tutorial in the First Time User Experience (FTUE), pilots will no longer be stuck in an infinite loading state
Hawken Reborn's application icon will now be HR themed
Legacy menus should no longer be accessible
Player ID copy button in the hangar now works as intended
Miscellaneous improvements to various cogs, axles, bearings, and doodads greased up for a smoother ride

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To stay up to date on all the latest Hawken Reborn news and connect with fellow pilots, join us at our official social media channels.

Discord: https://HWKN.link/Discord

Reddit: https://Reddit.com/r/HawkenReborn

Twitter: https://Twitter.com/HawkenReborn

Facebook: https://Facebook.com/HawkenReborn

Instagram: https://Instagram.com/HawkenReborn

YouTube: https://YouTube.com/@HawkenReborn

https://store.steampowered.com/app/705040/HAWKEN_REBORN?snr=2_9_100003_

Hawken Reborn Patch Notes - Version 0.1.0.2

Hey Pilots,

Our latest patch endeavoured to fix a number of known issues and some UI tweaks. As always, make sure to join our Discord to leave any and all feedback you have for Hawken Reborn.

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Fixed Issues

Gameplay

After destruction, some enemy weapons should no longer remain floating.
Pilots will no longer clip through Renegade Asteroids.
The payload's shields and health should now update accurately in real-time.
In-game mouse sensitivity should now be unaffected by external DPI settings.
Players should no longer be soft locked during FE4's tutorial after restarting the game.
During the second Story Arch Mission (A0E2), progression will no longer be blocked if a pilot does not collect a corroded metal node.

Patrol Mode

Random encounters difficulty will now scale up along with the zone Threat Level
Playing certain missions several times in a single Patrol Mode will no longer reset the mission's Threat Level to the zone's base Threat Level.
Threat Level increases for random encounters will now factor in a Pilot's activities that impact the Threat Level of the Zone, such as taking down enemies, completing content etc.
Issues with loading times/delays in starting Patrol mode should now be fixed.
Players attempting to go in and out of Patrol following completion of A0E4 and FE4 should no longer be stopped from progressing through gameplay.

UI/Messaging

Players should no longer see debug messaging when assembling a platform in the workshop.
Nyx's text during the tutorial has been revised to avoid confusion.
Fixed some missing text strings in the hangar for weapons, thrusters, and platforms.
Missing Scrip will now correctly display during the Mission Complete menu.
Elements of leftover submenu elements should no longer appear in the hangar.
Players should no longer see references to the "beta" on in-game messaging.

Misc.

Pressing TAB during the A0E2 Mission where Sun Mi prompts you to hit tab to open mission details no longer goes straight to the settings menu.
The "QUIT GAME" option is now available from the mech pad settings.
Players accessing the game on a new account should no longer fail to reconnect to servers after restarting the game.
Pilots should no longer be stuck in an infinite loading screen that requires a restart to fix.
Additional bolts tightened and gears greased.

Developer Blog #2 - Hard Landing

Hawken Reborn Early Access has officially started and to say that we’ve hard landed back on Illal would be… an understatement. Making a video game is a hard enough endeavor for any company, but with Hawken, it’s even harder because you’re also making an emotion.

The emotion of piloting a nimble yet deadly mech for the first time against others experiencing that same adrenaline rush.

The emotion of hopping into a cockpit so realistic that you still feel its diegetic UI over a decade later.

The emotion of building comradery amongst your community only to have it thrown around from different industry hands with a fleeting hope that it’ll make a triumphant return.

We know it’s been an emotional rollercoaster for the Hawken community and we don’t blame you. Hawken Reborn in its current state is not meant to be that triumphant return. What it is however, is a first step in engaging with the community, both old and new, to bring Hawken back into the gamer conversation and ensure that history doesn’t repeat itself as we try to honor its predecessor’s legacy. And that discourse is the Vitrolium shot we need to make this a great game for the community, with the community.

[h3]Why did you go into Early Access?
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There were two options we considered before going public. Continue to develop Hawken Reborn in our own bubble with private internal testing or go public to get feedback from the hardest of hardcore Hawken veterans and other gamers who might enjoy a different experience from the original. All this of course with the caveat that this is an “early Early Access” title.

We obviously chose the latter and it’s probably the best thing that could’ve happened to Hawken Reborn because it opened our eyes to how passionate the Hawken community is across the globe.

[h3]Why is the game in this state after all those years of development?
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The last few years have not been the optimal world for anyone to live a productive life. Especially for a team as international as ours, developing Hawken Reborn outside the norms of production has not been an easy road to navigate. In addition to that, the ideation process of taking an iconic game from a PVP environment to PVE is an almost limitless sandbox in and of itself. After all these years, the co-op free roam & narrative driven single player approach was the route that we finally landed on as the potential glue we needed to stitch elements of the original Hawken into Hawken Reborn.

[h3]Why such a dramatic pivot from PVP to PVE?
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Making a Hawken game is difficult and when creating a game without one of its original pillars, PVP, it compounds that difficulty. In our Early Access blog and PC Gamer interview, we stated that in order for a Hawken game to succeed, it needs a hard pivot to a PVE business model to ensure a long lasting player base. That’s a very difficult task to achieve with PVP and a hard barrier for an audience wanting to enjoy a game without the skill cap difficulty barrier.

There’s also a player base out there who appreciates great narrative and the world of Illal is ripe with them. This was an issue that the original game faced and left that narrative to fall on the shoulders of the critically acclaimed Genesis comics. Our aim with Hawken Reborn is to branch those narrative and gameplay pillars into an experience that casual players can enjoy slowly and hardcore pilots can still experience with an increased heart rate. It’s a tough balancing act, but the bones of what Hawken Reborn has to offer we feel can bridge those divides with our 6 current Story Arc missions, 30 narrative driven “Patrol Mode” missions, and a high risk/high reward increasingly difficult free roam mode for all pilots to explore.

[h3]AI Art and its usage in Hawken Reborn
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Last week we briefly addressed AI’s influence in our in-game cutscenes and unfortunately, it only served to fan the flames of distrust since there were obvious signs that AI was used in the final images. We were looking at the conversation from a “who made the artwork” perspective, which was produced by multiple artists on our team instead of focusing on what the final image looked like. For that, we take the blame and want to confirm that yes, this cutscene will definitely be updated in the future. Meanwhile, we want to share the original Dr. Loomis storyboard character concept as well as the original A0E1 cutscenes that were in the game before going into Early Access.

[h3]Community First Feedback
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The fervor generated by just one interview was extremely exciting to see and the tsunami of reviews into our Steam page has been sobering, but invigorating. You’ve told us everything that you hate about Hawken Reborn. You’ve torn it to pieces in almost every aspect. You’ve also given us a shot in our new yet familiar pilot seat and took time to acclimate to this new Hawken PVE experience. While Hawken Reborn is not the Hawken 2 that veterans were expecting, it is a Hawken game too and some players have flexed their mecha piloting prowess to take our toolkit to some breathtaking heights.

They’ve also used this Early Access window to help guide our team in the right direction in nearly all aspects of the game. From dialing in the “floatiness” of Hawken Reborn’s mechs with comparison videos to becoming our advocates in onboarding new rookie pilots, it’s an experience that has humbled us with the reminder that not all Hawken players have given up on us from this initial debut.

At the end of the day though, we all want to relive the original nostalgia of what it’s like to play a Hawken game. We just ask that you work with us as we continue to gather feedback, make changes, and dial in all of the mechanisms that make piloting a mecha such an exhilarating experience. We’re listening to player feedback and continuing to iterate on all the things that you dislike and like. Here’s only the tip of the iceberg of feedback that we’re already prioritizing once we get out of our initial Phase 1 of our roadmap.

Movement movement movement. With a PVE free roam game trying to balance the frenetic feel of a PVP mostly close quarters combat game, movement is one of the most difficult areas to lock in and will continue to be one of our number one priorities. As development continues, look for more noticeable improvements in this area as we fine tune this critical area of gameplay.
Repair Drones have been something we’ve seen players wanting to see back in Hawken Reborn. Although they won’t be returning in the same way, they will offer some limited healing utility to a few mechs. Why not all mechs? Because unlimited healing with a repair drone would essentially break our high risk/high reward Patrol Mode which is intended for players to hop in, play missions, gain more rewards with higher Threat Levels, and return to base for repairs.
Mech Enemy Archetypes will start to slowly evolve more and more as we get out of our initial phases of Early Access. These changes will offer more combat variety as we start to instill a bit more personality into how they engage players. This feature will require a lot of time to bake, but will increase the degree of difficulty, make combat less repetitive, and increase the challenge players face.
Crit spots will be introduced to increase your options for attack as you engage your enemies. Not only will this add an additional layer of complexity to our Enemy Archetypes, but being able to see an enemy severely incapacitated across the battlefield after you’ve disabled their utilities is so dang cool!

Other than the sheer amount of feedback that we’ve received from fans, another pleasant surprise from going public was the GIGASIZED amount of tweets we received from the Japanese community! In what was such a “no duh!” moment, we were floored by the immense excitement for Hawken in Japan and look forward to engaging with these pilots in the future. Until then… みんなさん、初めまして。よろしくお願いします!

Finally, to all the players who downloaded Hawken Reborn, wrote impassioned reviews, hopped back into your old communities, joined new ones, and did all you could to bring the word “Hawken” back into the minds of gamers, THANK YOU! We’ve got a long journey ahead of us and can’t wait for you all to once again strap in for an action packed ride in Hawken Reborn to make it a title worthy of the “Hawken” moniker. We CANNOT do this without you.

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Hawken Reborn is now available on PC Steam Early Access. To learn more visit our Early Access Blog and Steam Page https://HWKN.link/Download.

To stay up to date on all the latest Hawken Reborn news and connect with fellow pilots, join us at our official social media channels.

Discord: https://HWKN.link/Discord

Reddit: https://Reddit.com/r/HawkenReborn

Twitter: https://Twitter.com/HawkenReborn

Facebook: https://Facebook.com/HawkenReborn

Instagram: https://Instagram.com/HawkenReborn

YouTube: https://YouTube.com/@HawkenReborn

Hawken Reborn Now Live In Early Access

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Hawken Reborn is the next installment of the original Hawken 1.0, released in 2012, and has been built from the ground up as an all-new immersive PVE experience. Our aim is to bring back the exhilaration of piloting Hawken’s nimble, yet deadly mechs while wrapping your gameplay into a gripping narrative that will leave you wanting more.

But before you fire up your Mechs (also known as “Axes”) in our dystopian sci-fi universe, here’re a few things you should know about Hawken Reborn and our PC Steam Early Access campaign.

[h3]PVE GAMEPLAY:
[/h3]
What’s the main reason for a PVE-only game you might ask? We carefully dissected what made Hawken 1.0 such a fan favorite amongst its players and also analyzed what held it back. In order to build a game that had the right formula for success, we determined that PVE was the right direction to open up the game to a wider audience while still whetting the appetites of veteran players wanting to hop back into the cockpit.

Illal is a dark yet vibrant world, with inhabitants from all walks of life eking out an existence on its battle-riddled landscapes. Through a PVE package, we’ve made the exploration of these amazing narratives a bigger part of the game, and believe this will aid in making the game more accessible to all types of gamers who can potentially enjoy this world at their own pace. Playing Hawken Reborn means that you won’t be reliant on other players to progress through this experience, a limitation an exclusively PVP game can sometimes bring.

Whilst PVP is not in our current plans, the signature “Hawken feel” of hopping into your mech for an all-out brawl against a formidable foe is one that we will deliver and constantly adjust. Through both veteran and rookie feedback, we will continue to deliver an experience befitting of the Hawken title with a focus on player experience.

[h3]EARLY ACCESS & WHAT TO EXPECT:
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During this initial Early Access launch, you’ll play through the “Arc 0” missions. These first six missions are our First Time User Experience (FTUE) primer, introducing the player to vital narrative and gameplay mechanics that will expand as the game continues to evolve.

After you complete the Arc 0 missions, you’ll be able to freely explore the sandbox world of Illal in Patrol Mode where you’ll be able to tackle the 30 Patrol Missions featuring a wide variety of objectives that further expands on the characters and narratives in Hawken Reborn.

Patrol Mode will be your go-to destination for farming materials and testing out your latest builds. Be careful though, the longer you stay in Patrol Mode, the higher your threat level will increase and can potentially turn a delightful romp in the toxic acid-laced regions of Illal into an all-out death-defying escape from powerful enemies leaving you forgetting to catch your breath!

[h3]HAWKEN REBORN ROADMAP & COMMUNITY:
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The team made the decision to launch in Early Access whilst production steadily progresses so that we could start shaping the experience alongside community feedback. With this in mind, we feel that it’s only right that we share with you our vision for where we see our “North Star” roadmap for production on Hawken Reborn.

We’ll speak to our roadmap in greater detail in a follow-up blog post but know that 505 Games is supporting Hawken Reborn for a long time to come and are making sure not to rush things. As such, we’re moving at a pace that allows us to focus on delivering content when it’s ready, whilst adjusting and balancing pre-existing content at the same time. PHASE 1 is where we will really establish the gameplay and combat, so expect lots of tweaks and calls for feedback as we build the foundations of the game!

Whether this is your first time traversing the war-torn barrens of Illal, or you’re a veteran pilot with a substantial heap of mechanical foes, know that you will sit at the very heart of our game. We’re committed to shaping Hawken Reborn into a game built for the community, with the community. During our Early Access, we invite you to join us across our social media channels, share your feedback (both positive and negative), and engage with us in an open dialogue as we continue to improve the game for current and next generation pilots alike!

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[h3]Social Channels
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Discord: https://HWKN.link/Discord

Facebook: https://Facebook.com/HawkenReborn

Twitter: https://Twitter.com/HawkenReborn

Reddit: https://Reddit.com/r/HawkenReborn

Instagram: https://Instagram.com/HawkenReborn

YouTube: https://YouTube.com/@HawkenReborn

https://store.steampowered.com/app/705040/HAWKEN_REBORN/