Hawken's Next Step: Probably Story-Based Single-Player
As it stands, Hawken is the story of a few robots shooting a few other robots. Perhaps there's subtext and pentameter and denouements underneath it all, but right now, this is far from the Black Swan of artfully destructive mecha-ballets - let alone the Nutcracker. A recent live-action trailer, however, suggested that - for probably the first time in history - there's more than meets the eye to robots. And, if the folks at Adhesive Games have it their way, there'll be even more where that came from.
"Yeah, I think we'd definitely [like to create a single-player Hawken story]," co-founder Christopher Lalli told RPS during an interview at E3. "It was always just a matter of resources, and doing a player campaign is way more resource-heavy than multiplayer. We didn't have the manpower, and we really just couldn't do it. So I definitely would like to get the game out, and maybe on a sequel or DLC or something explore a single-player campaign mode."
That said, it'd be easy to overextend with a fresh $10 million burning a hole in your bank account, but Lalli assured me that Hawken's heart is still pure mechanized steel - not needless bells and whistles.
"For us, the game hasn't really been affected by the funding at all," he said. "We have more people on our team to help polish and make it better overall. But creatively, it's exactly what we wanted, and we have full say over that. Our passion is still there to create the game we want to create. So all it's done is broaden our scope for the game. We've added a lot of features that the community wanted – like more customization. It's allowed us to branch out with more things, like the graphic novel and those live-action shorts we're doing that kind of explore the world more."
The full interview and my impressions of the game (hint: it's really great) will be up soon. Until then, though, what's your take? Does the world need more tales of intrigue, romance, and improbably large metal exoskeletons? Actually, come to think of it, does the world need any of those?