During The Game Awards 2024, writer and developer Wargaming (finest identified for World of Tanks) showcased its new sport Steel Hunters. It’s a third-person shooter at its core, however it incorporates gameplay components seen in MOBAs, extraction shooters, and hero shooters with the principle hook being the hulking mechs you management referred to as Hunters. You play in aggressive objective-based matches in groups of two towards a number of different duos (for a complete of as much as 12 gamers and 6 groups per match) and with AI-controlled enemies across the map, making it a PvPvE-style sport.
I used to be in a position to take a look at a hands-off demo of Steel Hunters and noticed the sport in motion previous to getting unveiled at The Game Awards. It’s an deliberately slower-paced sport with extra of an emphasis on ways somewhat than twitch-shooting abilities, though it does carry many similarities to shooters that impressed it. Multiple seize factors are unfold throughout the three completely different maps obtainable, and emergent aspect targets pop up all through a match which might result in loot and objects that’ll allow you to in fight. Players may come away with beauty objects that persist for his or her Hunter if it may be extracted at a ultimate standoff in a match.
Hunters are basically the Hero characters with distinctive playstyles by way of their very own major weapon, set of abilities on cooldown, and magnificence of mobility. For instance, Fenris is a speedy wolf-like mech that’s nimble whereas Heartbreaker is a long-range sniper. You even have a fight medic in Trenchwalker and a spider-like tank in Weaver, and ability-focused strategist with Prophet and your prototypical run-and-gun Hunter with Razorside. (You can see all of the Hunters obtainable within the beta within the screenshots on this article.) All the Hunters are stated to have a degree of tactical synergy no matter which of them are paired collectively on a staff, and gamers want to make use of their strengths in tandem to get essentially the most out of their Hunters in matches.
As for the monetization mannequin, Wargaming isn’t straying too removed from what’s seen in its different video games. Hunters shall be extremely customizable from a beauty standpoint, however every will even have their very own development tracks to unlock completely different talents and modifications to customise to a loadout. Wargaming acknowledged that nothing that may be bought with actual cash will give gamers a aggressive benefit. However, there shall be methods to pay to speed up development (basically time-savers).
You will begin with three Hunters obtainable and should both play to make progress in direction of unlocking new Hunters or pay to unlock them. There will even be a battle cross and seasonal content material much like different stay service video games; nevertheless, the precise particulars of how these methods work are nonetheless to be decided.
A closed beta for Steel Hunters is energetic now and runs till December 22, which you’ll be able to join on the official Steel Hunters website. An open beta is deliberate for 2025, however there isn’t a set date or launch window but. The beta durations and preliminary launch will first come to PC, however Wargaming is planning on having a console model in some unspecified time in the future afterward.
Michael Higham is IGN’s Tech Editor.
