Purchase no longer required for Hawken Early Access

Hawken is fully free-to-play once more, as a purchase is no longer required to enter the game's Early Access.

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Adhesive Games' mech-based shooter Hawken recently hit Steam Early Access a few weeks ago. However, it did so somewhat at the expense of its free-to-play status, since new players needed to purchase a bundle to participate. This is no longer the case and the game is now completely free-to-play once again.

Meteor Entertainment community manager Micah Monfrini had previously stated that requiring a purchase was the best way to control the game's server load. He has since posted on the Hawken website that Steam users can now play Hawken for free directly from the game's Steam page. Bundles will still be available for purchase, with the exception of the Nemesis Bundle, which will no longer be listed after today.

The full version of Hawken is expected to release later this year.

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Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?

From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 10, 2014 3:30 PM

    Ozzie Mejia posted a new article, Purchase no longer required for Hawken Early Access.

    Hawken is fully free-to-play once more, as a purchase is no longer required to enter the game's Early Access.

    • reply
      March 10, 2014 3:59 PM

      I grabbed it last night and played for a couple hours. It's a decent bit of fun, and if you play for an hour, they give you 500 "gold" points or whatever.

      The market is setup a bit like Mechwarrior, and the gameplay is as well but it's faster paced, has more verticality, and the game has FAR fewer bugs.

      Go get it!

      • reply
        March 10, 2014 5:49 PM

        Agreed, Hawken is really fun, and much more fun to pick up and play than MWO (since you can just respawn when your a useless team-hampering moron)

        Advice to new players - The default mech is damn awesome. It has one of the best secondary weapons and it's primary weapons are balanced and useful. It looks like a TV with legs but it kicks ass. There is a more legit looking mech, the Assualt, which seems like the non-noob version of the CRT, but the differences are minor, so if you save up enough to buy something else, don't buy the Assualt. If you downright love the machine gun/rocket combo, buy the bezerker instead, it's a faster version of the CRT with a sweet ability with less HP.

        A few other tips
        -The TOW rocket, your first weapon, can be detonated in air to get people around corners with splash, learn to use this, it's great for fighting airborn dudes.
        -When you boost forward, you shot up on the radar, don't boost when sneaking
        -LEARN TO DODGE, it's what makes this game a fast nimble dueling game rather than a slug it out MWO type game
        -Cosmetic stuff is linked to only one mech, spend your premium currency wisely.
        -Play each gametype and win a round each day, you get a god bonus for 1st win of the day.
        -When playing seige, and you are told to defend the AA, For fuck sake do it with all your might, this is what makes or breaks a seige match.
        -You cannot go wrong with the bruiser mech, it's easy to use and fun.
        -A lot of weapons have a middle mouse ability, It zooms for sniper weapons, switches firemodes for the Raider etc, make sure your not missing out on cool stuff you can do.
        -STICK TOGETHER, unless your flanking, stay with your team, this is the difference between total domination and pathetic defeat in TDM.
        -Origin is the ugliest level ever.
        -Scouts do not scout, scouts rip you a new asshole, fill it with more assholes and rip them open too, it's an incredibly dangerous mech.

    • reply
      March 11, 2014 12:46 AM

      Very underrated game. Just listed the game on http://www.playerup.com

    • reply
      March 11, 2014 1:37 AM

      Whatever happened to the live action websites they were doing for this? Did it ever materialise?

    • reply
      March 11, 2014 6:11 AM

      If you had a free account pre-Steam,it carried over and you didn't have to pay for a bundle to play it.

      While I somewhat enjoy playing this game from time to time,there are few improvements that this game desperately needs.My biggest gripe right now is that the weapons feel like they have no weight,and when you are hitting the enemy,you don't seem to get a good enough response,whether is be audio or visual.

      The other issue is matchmaking and overall team play.Eight times out of ten,it seems like this game groups you up with the dumbest people on the planet,if you are running solo,and the other team is stacked with vets.That scenario makes it for a very tough time playing.

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