The Venn diagram of people who like tanks and people who like giant mechs might not just be one circle, but it’s probably close enough that it will feel like you’re looking at one of those red and blue 3D pictures without the glasses on. So, having already covered the land, sea and air battles of World of Tanks, Warplanes and Warships, it makes perfect sense that Wargaming’s next game would go all mecha. Enter the Steel Hunters.
Set in a post-cataclysm world, in which Starfall has polluted the world (because we clearly weren’t doing a quick enough job of it) and forced mankind to evacuate and live in space stations, you’ll play as a Hunter sent back down to the planet to try and harvest Starfall for all the energy and resource it can provide the orbital populace.
It’s a pretty generic premise, and don’t expect to be too surprised by the genres that Wargaming is targeting here, either. This is a blend of hero shooter, battle royale and extraction shooter. But… mechs are pretty dang cool.
Six teams of two Hunters drop down to the planet at the start of a match, their gigantic mechs keeping them safe from the elements, and handily helping you absolutely massive as you stomp around the world and come across towns, bridges, cars and other manmade structures that have now been left abandoned.
At launch there’s seven hunters to choose from, with the very standard Razorside an all-rounder with frag grenades and a shield recharge ability. Much cooler are the two quadrupeds Ursus and Fenris, who have missiles and greater mobility as their advantages. Heartbreaker is then a sniper stealth assassin, Prophet a glass cannon who’s best staying away from the fight and summoning drones, while Trenchwalker is the combat medic with a grenade launcher.
But you know what’s better than two or four legs? How about eight! Weaver is an arachnid that’s all about territorial control, deploying one-way shields and being able to switch to a minigun mode that slows movement but allows you to put down a lot of firepower.
There’s a good, solid mixture of different archetypes here, and Wargaming will have plenty of ideas of new mechs to add down the line. What’s also important is how they work together. You’ll always drop and fight as a pair, so having Trenchwalker, Prophet or Weaver could be great for their various forms of second line support abilities alongside a faster-moving Fenris to quickly show force to enemy teams.
Still on the planet are drones that you will want to attack to gain loot from them, whether that’s a boost to shields, energy cells (which feed an in-match experience system), repair kits and more. Each mech has unlockable abilities as you gain experience and work up through five levels – level 3 unlocks the second ability. There’s some potential here for different builds to emerge that can add to the player synergies and tactical choices as well.
Of course, a lot of your tactics will be determined by the game mode. Starfall Harvest has you heading to try and capture and hold towers that will give bonuses to radar, buffs and the like. Mid-game events will also spice things up with a Tag Hunt, where you need to collect the tags of fallen Hunters, and this can lead to unlocking the Colossus if you collect enough – this will transforms you into an even bigger mech for a short amount of time, which can be a powerful bonus.
It will all come to a head with a final extraction phase, as you need to reach the extraction point and hold the position until time runs out or you defeat all the remaining teams. A tiny bit disappointing, only one pair can extract and win, so there’s none of the social mind games of The Division’s Dark Zone, though it will still build up to a natural fever pitch at the end.
In contracts to their empire of historical wargames, Steel Hunters will be quite the change of pace. From tanks with tracks to big stompy mechs, and from pitched battles to a PvPvE game mode that latches onto all the buzzword multiplayer genres currently dominating gaming, will this start a bold new era for the company?
Well, the proof will be in the playing, and a playtest is now on from 12th to 22nd December, ahead of a wider launch next year.