Latest Hawken update may deploy by the end of month, should bring major changes

Crunchy, bullet-ridden, free-to-play mech shooter Hawken is currently getting a major overhaul that may go live by the end of the month, according to a by Adhesive Games producer Jason Hughes.

by Adhesive Games producer Jason Hughes. Current goals for the in-beta game include new matchmaking and customization tools as well as the integration of bots to training modes for new players, among many other proposed changes.

Developers have been active communicating their work on the game in and its integration with the Oculus Riftdisplay system and look in the upcoming patch to be prioritizing ways to boost Hawken's player base, according to recent public comments from Hughes. “Everything is going to be impacted,” Hughes told PCGamesN. “From my perspective, 'stickiness' with a game, especially with F2P—you need a lot of people playing, you need people telling their friends, you need a lot of people staying with the game and playing with the game. And that could have been a lot better for us. So we tried to look at places to go, where are we failing people where are people not sticking around? Where are players getting confused? And that was a big motivation for this update.”

Since it entered open beta in December of last year, Hawken has added maps, made changes to the way combat functions, and worked to create a broken-down, but still attractive, in-game universe for its pilots. As one-half—along with MechWarrior Online—of the first-person, mech-centered shooter community, it's clear there's stil room for some differentiation. But both games have carved out a distinct identity for themselves as they've stomped through their respective open beta phases and I'm eager to see what's in store for the community when Hawken's latest iteration eventually goes live.

Thanks, Joystiq.