HAWKED opts to explore a treasure focused theme within an extraction and looter shooter framework that leaves players with a colourfully relaxed option in comparison to some others on the hardcore side of the genre scale. This colourful action also comes with a free to play price tag allowing players new to the genre to test the waters without a purchase and is equally capable as being both a first foot into the genre or potentially even your main game.
The foundation of your HAWKED gameplay adventure is the mysterious island of X-Isle where you’ll find relics of civilisations long since extinct and an array of familiar and weird lizard themed monsters that serve as your combatants alongside other players given the PvPvE setup. Your role on this island is that of a treasure hunter as a recruited Renegade for the adventurers guild known as GRAIL who have their eye fixated on relics that have been out of reach to date.
The core structure is a 10 team setup with each having 3 players for a game that straddles both battle royale and extraction shooter genres. The treasure theme also appears throughout with environmental puzzles on the map to unlock glyphs rewarding player teams for completing them while also creating points of conflict with other player groups who are also seeking treasure.
To help this conflict further generally players will find tight jungle and river locations that creates predominately a mid ranged setup for fights. With this in mind you’ll find familiar gun types, regenerating shields and the ability to recover allies when downed although this is really only a possibility once a fight has finished given the time required. Like other games in this genre HAWKED opts for a simple rarity system to weapons across the classes of sniper, light machine gun, assault rifle, shotgun, pistol, sub machine gun and some unique armaments as well. With loot exploding outside of chests and other players HAWKED adopts the quick to upgrade equipment mantra style of play more akin to battle royale than modern day extraction shooter.
All of this combines to bring the final standing teams to the artifact extraction zones with these artifacts that you successfully extract with also serving as a gameplay mechanic to customise your loadout for next time. These artifacts provide functionality such as healing, shield and damage to allow for players to feel more comfortable with their match setup. While common and weak ones are relatively easy to acquire from the likes of the roaming dinosaur caravan the rarer versions will require a victory on X-Isle which also come with healthy amounts of in game currency.
With the free to play price tag you’ll find a wealth of tempting visual cosmetics that help you customise near every element of your Renegade and helps players to differentiate themselves from the basic designs. This includes headwear, body, backpacks, hoverboard, weapon skins and different colour scheme variants of all of these.
Summary:
- Free to play extraction shooter and battle royale blend.
- Command your own Renegade in teams of 3 in treasure hunting mayhem.
- Combines familiar first person shooting with environmental puzzles that not only add diversity but bring players into contest objectives.
- Collect artifacts with successful extraction to give you an edge in the next adventure into X-Isle.
- Mixes PvP and PvE content for Windows gamers.
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Review Platform: PC