During The Game Awards 2024, writer and developer Wargaming (greatest identified for World of Tanks) showcased its new recreation Steel Hunters. It’s a third-person shooter at its core, nevertheless it incorporates gameplay parts seen in MOBAs, extraction shooters, and hero shooters with the primary hook being the hulking mechs you management known 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 recreation.
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 recreation with extra of an emphasis on ways quite than twitch-shooting expertise, 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 facet goals pop up all through a match which might result in loot and objects that’ll make it easier to in fight. Players may come away with beauty objects that persist for his or her Hunter if it may be extracted at a closing standoff in a match.
Hunters are basically the Hero characters with distinctive playstyles via their very own major weapon, set of expertise 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 can be extremely customizable from a beauty standpoint, however every may also have their very own development tracks to unlock completely different talents and modifications to customise to a loadout. Wargaming said that nothing that may be bought with actual cash will give gamers a aggressive benefit. However, there can 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 may also be a battle cross and seasonal content material just 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 lively now and runs till December 22, which you’ll be able to join on the official Steel Hunters web site. An open beta is deliberate for 2025, however there is no such thing as a set date or launch window but. The beta intervals 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.
