Fans have gotten Hawken on PC working again... in singleplayer

(Image credit: 505 Games)

Cult free-to-play Mech shooter Hawken shut down on PC at the beginning of 2018, was removed from Steam, and its fans mourned. Despite its troubled development history, Hawken was unique in both the free-to-play and mech game spaces. Various statements and rumors about the game's revival have proven false so far, the official website is completely dormant, and its social media accounts have either gone dormant or been deleted.

Fans, however, can't be deleted. A group referring to themselves as Hawakening have been laboring to get the game running again and have finally met some success. It's back up, at least in limited fashion, thanks to a method devised by Hawakening team. You can boot it up, but since there are no multiplayer servers nor code to enable them, you can only play the game's modes that work in offline singleplayer vs the game's AI.

Still, if you're nostalgic for Hawken that might do the trick. The modding community has said they'd like to speak to publishers 505 Games or developers Hawken Entertainment Inc about reviving the game's PC multiplayer.

To be clear, backing up your software and using this method to play the game in Singleplayer is only legal (in the United States, other nations may vary) if you have own a license to the game. If you played the game on Steam, you have a license. Here's how to play:

You can learn more about the project by watching the video above, then going to Hawakening.com.

Contributor

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games. When he's not on his PC, he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun.

Latest in Sim
PowerWash Simulator 2 screenshots
'More evolution than revolution': PowerWash Simulator 2 is coming late 2025, and it's bringing online multiplayer and split-screen co-op with it
A child stands on top of a dinosaur exhibit, hugging the nose of a dinosaur skull.
As a real life museum employee, I'm a bit confused by the amount of pirate ghosts in Two Point Museum—but it's not going to stop me trying to make the most realistic exhibits I can
A citizen of a city
A lot is going on for Cities: Skylines' 10th anniversary—from freebies to new creator packs—but there's still a big ol' elephant in the room
Staring eyes in a face covered in oil
Death Stranding 2's PS5 release date is in June, let's hope it doesn't take 8 months to hit PC this time
Cities: Skylines 2 screenshot - street level at night
Cities: Skylines 2's asset editor remains a distant dream: Colossal Order is still working on it but says it's 'proven more technically challenging than initially anticipated'
Town in Tales of Seikyu with two townsfolk sat on the stairs
Tales of Seikyu is just your regular farming simulator, apart from the fact I've got shapeshifting abilities and I'm engaged to a pretty persistent kappa
Latest in News
Man facing camera
The Day Before studio reportedly sues Russian website for calling infamous disaster-game a 'scam'
Will Poulter holding a CD ROM
'What are most games about? Killing': Black Mirror Season 7 includes a follow-up to 2018 interactive film Bandersnatch
Casper Van Dien in Starship Troopers
Sony, which is making a Helldivers 2 movie, is also making a new Starship Troopers movie, but it's not based on the Starship Troopers movie we already have
Assassin's Creed meets PUBG
Ubisoft is reportedly talking to Tencent about creating a new business entity to manage Assassin's Creed and other big games
Resident Evil Village - Lady Dimitrescu
'It really truly changed my life in every possible way': Lady Dimitrescu actor says her Resident Evil Village role was just as transformative for her as it was for roughly half the internet in 2021
Storm trooper hero
Another live service shooter is getting shut down, this time before it even launched on Steam