Hawken is a FPS Mech Combat Game that shouldn’t feel too much like a simulation while not getting too arcady.
It is often mentioned by the developers that they take a balanced approach regarding gameplay: it should feel like a crossover between Halo or Call of Duty – very action focused shooters – and MechWarrior – a game that has a more RPG/Simulation focused gameplay.

So Hawken won’t be just a shooter with a mech skin. For one, the gameplay is to be very tightly tied to items.

Items

Items can be bought around the battlefield at special stations and grant you special abilities. Different mech types (see below) will be able to carry different items. Although nothing specific has been confirmed yet, there have been talks about a Hologram item which projects an image of your mech onto the battlefield, and something like tripwires has also been mentioned. Of course there are many more items to come and we will constantly update the information on our item page.

Energy Units

The currency to buy items is called energy units. You will probably be able to gather them around the map and – most importantly – by destroying other mechs.
Energy units will also have an important rule in the two unique team modes, see below for more specific information.

Game Modes

Four different game modes have been announced: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch and two unique team modes. One of the two team modes is, as mentioned above, a siege type game mode.
One of the team modes is a siege type game mode, where you have to gather resources (probably energy units) to build a battleship, with which you can go and destroy your enemies base. Of course your battleship can be destroyed too, dropping resources for your enemies to gather and launch their own battleship.

RPG Points and Mech Types

Another RPG like aspect of the game are points you can spend at the beginning of a game. You start out with 3 points and can invest them in speed, defense or attack. In combination with the three different mech types – light, medium and heavy – you can create custom mechs. If you’d like to play a tank, take a heavy mech and spend your points on defense, if you would rather play a scout, take a light mech and spend more points on speed, and so on.

Weapons

There will be primary and secondary weapons. The weapons will overheat, there will not be any ammo in the game. So far we know of 6 primary and 3 secondary weapons, a detailed list can be found on our weapons page. The primary weapon is designed to be used most of the time – it overheats slowly, has a short cooldown time while dealing a reasonable amount of damage. The secondary weapon is more of a power weapon – it deals a lot of damage, but it overheats very quickly and has a high cooldown time. Still there won’t be any one-hit kills. Fights are supposed to last 10 to 15 seconds – short and intense.

Health

Health won’t regenerate automatically. To heal yourself you will have to enter a heal mode, where you will be vulnerable, as you are not able to move, but you will also be invisible to the radar. In any other case the radar will detect you, the faster you move, the farther away you will be detected.

Movement

To create the heavy feeling of a mech, walking speed will be slow. To ensure intense battles you can execute a boost forward, side dashes, and a jetpack supported jump. All of this is limited by the consumption of fuel. Fuel regenerates, but there won’t be any flying around the map with the little fuel you can use at once.

Map Design

The maps are designed without vast open spaces, the gameplay will rely more on taking cover and lots of obstacles in the world.
7 Maps with 5 distinct looking environments are planned.