Steel Hunters is a new mech-based PvPvE extraction shooter from Wargaming, the studio behind other free-to-play juggernauts like World of Tanks and World of Warships. The game’s mechs drop the genre’s usual complexity for a more streamlined selection akin to a hero shooter. Skipping the high-stakes nature of extraction shooters makes Steel Hunters one of the genre’s most accessible offerings.
Players compete in two-man squads to add strategic layers to gunfights. Steel Hunters has a well-defined identity in the crowded market of free-to-play shooters. Unfortunately, it also struggles to compellingly hook players and keep them coming back.
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Before a match, players choose their mech and customize their loadout. A generous number of mechs, called Hunters, are already available, each boasting its own melee attack, weapon, and two abilities. There is a lot of variation between the Hunters, each offering a different play style.
The beetle-like Weaver is capable of deploying an energy shield and tearing through enemy mechs with its minigun. The support-focused Trenchwalker is equipped with a self-healing hand cannon attack and a grenade that heals allies and damages opponents. And there is the oddly curvaceous Heartbreaker, a mech with a sniper rifle that can turn invisible and use a radar pulse to detect nearby targets.
Steel Hunters offers decent Hunter variety in early access.
Once you have picked a mech, you can customize its loadout with a small number of modifiers that you unlock by leveling the Hunter up. These modifiers are not game-changing, but offer incremental buffs to certain abilities or characteristics to help you tailor and specialize your chosen Hunter.
None of them are particularly interesting, especially when compared to customization systems in other mech titles, but they do offer a layer of customization that helps deepen the experience. Each Hunter also has background lore and story beats tied to them, but it’s not especially apparent.
Now that your Hunter is kitted out, you’re ready to drop into a match. Matches are played out on one of three large maps with six teams of two Hunters spread across pre-determined spawn points. Throughout the match, you search the map for chests and computer-controlled drones to find loot and slightly improve your build. Eventually, an extraction zone will be placed on the map with only one duo able to claim and hold it, crowning them as the match’s winners and granting them some bonus rewards.
Steel Hunters’ structure is fundamentally standard, but its attempts at accessibility significantly diminish its fun. The game’s lackluster loot is the primary culprit. All the loot players fight over during matches are consumables, like repair kits and ammunition, or equipment that offers small stat increases, like increasing your shield recharge rate by a couple of percentage points. None of it is taken out of the match or extracted with you, making Steel Hunters more accurately described as a battle royale with an extraction and mech gimmick.
Steel Hunters matches are boring without meaningful loot.
The lack of meaningful loot also renders much of each match rather boring. There is no excitement to be found in opening a chest and finding a rare piece of gear. Fighting the AI drones falls into an odd gap between being too easy to be a satisfying challenge and taking too long to have the power fantasy appeal of squishing grunts in Titanfall.
Steel Hunter’s lackluster looting puts all the weight of fun on the player-to-player combat. Thankfully, the encounters with other groups of players are really fun. There is a lot of strategy in playing to the strengths of you and your teammate’s Hunters while finding cover to repair damage or reload your weapon. The fights are fast-paced mech affairs. They’re balanced well to ensure they feel fast but give you ample time to make decisions.
Steel Hunters nails its PvP fights so well that its lackluster looting and PvE encounters are all the more disappointing, especially as they take up most of each match’s time. There is still some fun to be found here, especially if you can bring a friend along to strategize with, but eschewing stakes in exchange for simplicity leaves little reason to come back after a few play sessions. Why keep trudging through boring piles of loot and boring fights to find kernels of fun when the rewards that don’t offer much in return?
Steel Hunters is available now in early access on PC.
