Highlights
- Hawked is a vibrant treasure-hunting extraction shooter that offers interesting gameplay mechanics and customizable characters.
- The game features PvPvE gameplay where players must collect glyphs to unlock a vault and extract relics, which give Uncharted vibes and add new abilities to their loadout.
- While Hawked draws influence from games like Fortnite as well, it strives to establish its own unique gameplay experience with distinct features and a colorful aesthetic.
Entering early access last August, the treasure-hunting-themed extraction shooter, Hawked from developer My.Games is launching today for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. An Xbox One version is coming soon. An indie free-to-play title supported by a battle pass, Hawked boasts a vibrant color palette, lootable weapon crates, and playable characters known as Renegades that will inevitably draw Fortnite comparisons. But Hawked has enough interesting mechanical flourishes and deviations that fans of squad-based battle royales and extraction shooters should give it a try.
Game ZXC recently had the opportunity to take Hawked out for a spin just ahead of launch, offering a look at the game's broad selection of firearms, unique customization options, and traversal mechanics. The game's frame narrative places players in the employ of Grail, a totally-not-evil treasure hunting corporation that wants to pilfer X-Isle's cache of ancient magical relics for the purported good of mankind (and profit).
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More Fortnite-Lite Than Fortnite-Like
Hawked bills itself as a PVPVE extraction shooter, which translates to a number of 3-player squads landing on the periphery of X-Isle simultaneously, with the shared goal of looting rare treasure from the island's sealed vault. X-Isle does not seem to feature a shrinking arena gimmick to force player encounters, but players will need to collect a number of glyphs to manually unlock the vault, which serves as another conflict choke point. The last point of contention often comes down to the extraction phase of the game, where players in possession of the pilfered relics try to power up a teleporter and escape with the treasure.
When players successfully extract a relic, they may add it to their character's loadout, unlocking new abilities in future runs. Renegades also have two categories of support items to select from, including a boomerang sub-weapon, a lantern with seeking projectiles that inflict burn, and other similar utility pieces. Furthermore, players will earn currency which they can use to unlock and upgrade these trinkets.
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Just as there is an important distinction between Soulslikes and SoulslitesHawked feels like it was influenced by Fortnite, Apex Legends, and other similar titles, but the core gameplay has enough variety to feel meaningfully distinct. Rather than a game that feels like it is trying to replace or compete with Fortnite, Hawked feels like a title that is trying its hardest to escape that comparison and prove it can do something original in that space.
Extraction Shooter Meets Uncharted
The core hook to Hawked's gameplay is collecting the glyphs, which usually revolves around a combat trial or completing simple, shooting gallery style puzzles. One such puzzle is similar to the Seelie mechanic of Genshin Impact, where players must free and guide an imprisoned island spirit to the location of a glyph. Once unlocked, the glyphs in question will provide players with temporary buffs, such as increased traversal speed.
These simple trials are not as elaborate or cerebral as the puzzles players will encounter in Uncharted, but they feel like a roller-coaster version of that game's aesthetic, and completing the relatively simple tasks can become very complicated with the addition of other players.
Hawked also seems to have just a hint of MOBA in its DNA, thanks to the camps of enemy NPCs dotting X-Isle. Sometimes these enemies are guarding supply crates or they must be defeated to earn glyphs, but other times they merely serve as zone hazards. These monsters are not created equally either; powerful boss-like enemies will occasionally emerge from portals to wreak havoc on squads.
Solid Gunplay and (Mostly) Satisfying Mobility
Hawked's gunplay is reasonably tight. Revolvers have an appropriately satisfying punch, assault rifles and automatic shotguns put down players on short order depending on their respective range. The game also has a handful of sci-fi armaments that deviate from the expected set of firearms. Like Fortnite, guns, health, and armor upgrades come in grades. The movement system also feels similar, with a couple notable exceptions.
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Players have a handy traversal tool that allows them to grapple, pole vault, and wall run at certain points throughout X-Isle. Also, while on water, Renegades can traverse the level extremely quickly with a hoverboard-like mount, which is a fun flourish. These unusual approaches to traversal are fun, and it would be great to see My.Games push the adventurous movement options even further in the future.
Other aspects of the movement system feel a little odd, however. The dodge move covers a realistically short distance—which seems to be utterly at odds with the rest of the game's tone and logic. Players expecting an Elden Ring-esque rolling dodge should moderate their expectations to a quick sidestep. More troubling though, is the fact that players can sprint and bunny hop almost indefinitely without consuming stamina—as opposed to simply sprinting—which makes bunny-hop sprinting effectively mandatory for efficient traversal. These hangups can be solved with some minor adjustments to the stamina system, however.
Hawked's Technical Jitters
While the mechanical bones of Hawked are strong, the preview session did suffer from a few technical hiccups. There was a reoccurring bug that featured a blank screen sans buttons, which forced a client restart after interacting with some of the vendors and NPCs in the Renegade hub. In matches, it must also be said that there were some brutal ping spikes, but this is understandable as the preview matches were hosted on the game's EU servers.
Hopefully, having local servers will resolve the lag issues for North American players. And while the bugs encountered were inconvenient, they never interfered with core game play. Fortnite fans looking for something familiar but distinct, and adventure gamers looking to squad up for multiplayer, should consider taking Hawked for a spin.
Hawked is out today for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. An Xbox One version is coming soon.
