I don’t think of the giant mecha genre as being a genre I’m wild about, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for it anyway. I suppose that’s a bit like saying I’ve never been someone who’s into vegetables or the wizarding school genre. The mecha genre is so big it spans all tastes! From little kid shows to intensely violent ones, there’s really something for everyone. I have written about my love of Gundam on more than one occasion (RIP, Gundam Evolution), and the Armored Core series holds a place in my heart still too, so perhaps I actually am a bit of a mecha fanboy. Despite personally thinking that I love isekais, JRPGs, and metroidvanias, I also love giant robots that can wreck stuff.
Fortunately for me, we now have a brand-new PvP mecha game that really catches my attention. From the studio that brought us World of Tanks and World of Warships comes a new IP and entrant to the mecha battle genre: Steel Hunters. It’s equally bizarre and certainly wasn’t on my bingo card, but here it is: a new IP and game that revolves around giant mechas wrecking each other.
Now even though I realize that World of Warships is right in my line of fire for games that you’d think I’d be interested in, I just don’t really get excited about WW1 or WW2 or any of those sorts of historical battles and their ilk. Tank battles and ship battles just don’t really do it for me. But mechas? Hold up because I need to see this.
And so I did, when last week the studio held an open access weekend during Steam Next Fest. I took that opportunity to get in there, get my mecha on, and find out if it’s going to be worth my time.
First, let’s talk about what the game is from a 10,000-foot view. Steel Hunters is a blend of extraction shooter and battle royale. Six teams of two are randomly assigned one of the spawning points on the map. Each point is equally spaced out, so you won’t be dropped in any closer to one team than another.
This setup is nice, actually. In a lot of battle royales there is a bit of excitement to suddenly seeing another team right next to you and getting and early knockout, while at the same time, not having that pressure and instead having a few moments to run and collect loot before the fighting really gets underway can be a relief. The goal is to kill as many opponents as you can while scoring points for gathering loot and other victory points as you can and then exit the arena or (as was the case in literally every match I played) kill all the other teams.
It’s that loot-and-GTFO angle of the match that gives the game an extraction game vibe, but in the iteration I was playing, I never got any loot I could take out and return with. There are a couple of equipment slots on your mechs, so perhaps it will be coming in a future update. Instead, the items I looted during a match were simply upgrades for the current fight: more ammo, increased armor, and power-ups. So in that regard, it felt more like a BR.
Then again, once your match, begins you will locate and find some PvE baddies to take down too. They were never very dangerous, at least based on the ones I encountered. I’d say they are more like… annoying treasure chests. After I took them down, an item would drop for upgrading my in-game powers. But I can see how those battles could become something more dangerous given time, so I suppose that is another feature of extraction games that you’ll find in Steel Hunters.
As the match progresses, points of interest will become enabled for players to fight over. Some of them are capture points that provide bonuses, and others will turn into loot piñatas. It’s a good way of funneling players towards one another and encouraging direct combat.
The mechas in Steel Hunters function more as heroes than as player creations. Each falls into one of four mech types that actually mimic our typical RPG roles of DPS, support, and tank in a way. It isn’t exactly one-to-one, but there are clear parallels. Also I love the class names!
There are the Scrappers, which are somewhat beast-like, so if you’re a Transformers Beast Wars fan, you may find one here you like. They roughly mimic animals. The Ursus resembles a bear; the weaver, a spider. The others were all humanoids: the Syndicate, Wildcard, and Coldfire PMC.
While each one leaned more heavily toward a defined playstyle, there were some customization options for the player to tinker with. I primarily played the Ursus, which focused on slow, high damage with some ice powers for increased defense and a chill effect. This meant that I could choose from a couple of options – it looked like two choices for each skill. This gave me some control in how the mecha played without kicking the doors off the barn of balance.
There are also multiple vertical progression options. I somehow managed not to get any screenshots of the skill trees, but they do exist as a means of improving your mecha between fights. Using a currency earned from matches, I was able to increase my mecha’s strengths through a few different trees. Compared to some other games in this genre, this ones gave me enough options to feel as if I had personalized it to my playstyle.
Probably one of the absolute best features of the game is the support you can provide your teammate even after you are knocked out in a fight. For one thing, as long as your ally is still alive, you have the chance to respawn. Now, that could either be from your partner’s use of a rez item or just a simple respawn timer, but either way, it’s excellent because it encourages playing smart to survive rather than just throwing your hands in the air once you’re solo.
Even better are the support skills. That’s right! Even though I was knocked out, I could choose one of three random powerups to instantly support my teammate. Sometimes it was a shield boost or an auto reload or even a damage booster. This meant that I couldn’t just give up on the fight just because I wasn’t technically alive and in it anymore. I could try to pay attention to what my ally was doing and what he might need the most at that point. Very cool, and I hope it’s something more games will take into account.
Overall, Steel Hunters does a lot of things right at this stage of testing. I genuinely had a fun time playing. The open access weekend has since ended, but I know I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for the next one!
Every other week, Massively OP’s Sam Kash delivers Fight or Kite, our trip through the state of PvP across the MMORPG industry. Whether he’s sitting in a queue or rolling with the zerg, Sam’s all about the adrenaline rush of a good battle. Because when you boil it down, the whole reason we PvP (other than to pwn noobs) is to have fun fighting a new and unpredictable enemy!
