HAWKEN died in 2018 when its PC servers shut down, leaving thousands of mech combat fans without their favorite game. An official revival called Hawken Reborn launched in 2023, but it completely missed the point by turning a beloved PvP mech shooter into a PvE grind-fest that nobody asked for. Now, a dedicated community team called Hawakening just released their 2026 preview showing what they’ve accomplished through reverse engineering, and it looks like HAWKEN is finally getting the comeback it always deserved.
What Hawakening Actually Is
Hawakening is a community effort to restore multiplayer functionality to the defunct CL142579 build of HAWKEN through cleanroom reverse engineering. The team injects their own code into the client and wrote custom server infrastructure completely from scratch. It’s a labor of love that started in 2020 as a single-player revival letting players mess around with bots, but the 2024 relaunch brought back full PvP multiplayer with custom servers.
The project is entirely free, self-hosted, and will never be monetized. That’s important considering HAWKEN was originally free-to-play with microtransactions. The team stripped out all the pay-to-win nonsense, meaning everyone has access to the same mechs and weapons based purely on progression. According to their website, the developers are committed to keeping it this way forever.
The 2026 preview video released on January 2nd shows off upcoming features including improved matchmaking, quality-of-life updates, new community-created content, and technical improvements to the netcode. The video clocks in at under two minutes but packs enough information to get longtime HAWKEN fans genuinely excited about what’s coming.
Why HAWKEN Mattered
For those who never experienced it, HAWKEN was a free-to-play multiplayer mech shooter that launched in 2012. It featured fast-paced combat with giant robots that somehow felt nimble and responsive despite their size. The game looked absolutely gorgeous with a gritty industrial aesthetic that made every match feel like battling through a sci-fi junkyard. Movement mechanics included dodging, boosting, and jetpack-assisted jumps that created a skill ceiling way higher than typical shooters.
What set HAWKEN apart was how it balanced arcade accessibility with tactical depth. Matches played quickly, usually lasting 10-15 minutes, but mastering individual mechs, understanding weapon synergies, and learning map control took genuine skill. The game featured multiple mech classes from agile scouts to heavy tanks, each with distinct playstyles and loadout customization options.
The 2011 work-in-progress trailer went viral, generating massive hype. But once HAWKEN actually released, it struggled to maintain an audience. Development bounced between studios, with Adhesive Games creating it before Meteor Entertainment took over, then Reloaded Games, and finally 505 Games publishing it. That instability meant features got half-implemented, balance patches arrived inconsistently, and the monetization kept shifting between fair and predatory.
The Decline and Death
PC servers shut down in January 2018, though PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions technically remained online with dwindling player counts. By then, the damage was done. HAWKEN became another cautionary tale about live-service games that couldn’t find sustainable audiences despite having excellent core mechanics. You couldn’t even buy the game on Steam anymore, erasing it from digital storefronts completely.
That erasure is what makes fan revivals like Hawakening so important. When publishers abandon games, they typically disappear forever unless someone preserves them. HAWKEN was still fun, still mechanically sound, and still had passionate fans who wanted to keep playing. But without official servers or single-player functionality, the game was effectively dead.
Why Hawken Reborn Failed
When 505 Games announced Hawken Reborn in 2023, fans were cautiously optimistic. Maybe the publisher learned from past mistakes. Maybe they’d deliver the definitive version HAWKEN always deserved. Instead, Reborn launched as an early-access PvE game focused on story missions and cooperative gameplay. The entire competitive multiplayer aspect that defined HAWKEN was gone, replaced with generic PvE grinding against AI enemies.
Steam reviews for Hawken Reborn remain “mostly negative” years later. Players complained about the shift away from PvP, lackluster mission design, and pay-to-win elements creeping back into progression systems. The game peaked at 25 concurrent players on Steam following a September 2024 update, which tells you everything about how the community felt. An October 2024 GamesRadar article called it out for getting “skewered” by fans who just wanted the original PvP experience back.
The irony is that Hawakening launched their multiplayer revival in 2024 while Hawken Reborn was still struggling in early access. The fan project immediately attracted more active players than the official revival because it understood what made HAWKEN special. People didn’t want story missions or cooperative grinding. They wanted to pilot giant robots and shoot other people piloting giant robots in fast-paced competitive matches. It’s not complicated.
The Hawakening Team
The 2026 preview video credits the team as atom0s, AmazingGoose, DragonStrike406, Epos95, !NFiN!TY, Phobos-7, Sigil, SpaceSpiff32, T-Grave, and Waocats. These developers have spent years reverse engineering HAWKEN’s netcode, server architecture, and client functionality to make multiplayer work without access to the original source code or official support.
Cleanroom reverse engineering is legally protected in most jurisdictions as long as developers don’t use proprietary code or assets. Hawakening’s team wrote everything from scratch, analyzing how the game communicates with servers and recreating that functionality independently. It’s the same approach used by projects like Northstar for Titanfall 2, which brought custom servers and mod support to that game after Respawn stopped supporting it.
What’s remarkable is how polished Hawakening feels despite being a volunteer project. Matchmaking works smoothly. Netcode performs well. The game runs stable. Custom server browsers let players choose specific maps and modes. The team even hosts tournaments, maintaining the competitive scene HAWKEN had during its peak. That level of dedication and technical skill deserves recognition.
The 2026 Roadmap
While the preview video doesn’t reveal specific features in detail, the description mentions upcoming improvements to matchmaking algorithms, quality-of-life updates based on community feedback, new community-created content, and continued technical refinement of the netcode. The team also plans to eventually open-source the entire project, which they describe as “the key to making Hawken truly immortal.”
Open-sourcing would allow anyone to host servers, create mods, and contribute improvements without relying on the core Hawakening team. That’s how games like Quake and Unreal Tournament maintained active communities decades after official support ended. If Hawakening achieves that, HAWKEN could theoretically stay playable forever as long as even a handful of dedicated fans keep servers running.
The project is still in beta with warnings that progress might get wiped before the 1.0 launch. The team is still finalizing progression systems now that microtransactions are gone. Do they gate mechs behind level requirements? Make everything unlocked from the start? Use cosmetic-only unlocks? Those decisions will shape how new players engage with the game long-term.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Hawakening?
Hawakening is a community-driven project that restored multiplayer functionality to the defunct mech shooter HAWKEN through reverse engineering. The team wrote custom servers from scratch, allowing players to once again enjoy PvP mech combat after the official servers shut down in 2018.
Is Hawakening legal?
Yes. Hawakening uses cleanroom reverse engineering, which is legally protected. The team wrote all server code independently without using proprietary code or assets from the original game. Players still need to own HAWKEN to play, as Hawakening only provides server functionality.
When did HAWKEN die?
HAWKEN’s PC servers shut down in January 2018, though PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions technically remained online with minimal player counts. The game was also removed from digital storefronts, making it difficult for new players to access.
What happened to Hawken Reborn?
Hawken Reborn launched in May 2023 as an early-access PvE game focused on story missions and cooperative gameplay. It was poorly received by fans who wanted the original PvP experience, currently maintaining “mostly negative” Steam reviews and peak player counts around 25 concurrent users.
Is Hawakening free?
Yes. Hawakening is completely free, self-hosted by volunteers, and will never be monetized. The team removed all pay-to-win mechanics from the original free-to-play HAWKEN, making progression based purely on gameplay rather than purchases.
How do I play Hawakening?
Visit hawakening.com for download instructions and links to their Discord server. You’ll need a copy of HAWKEN (CL142579 build) to play. The community provides guides for getting set up and finding matches through the custom server browser.
Will Hawakening be open source?
Yes. The team plans to open-source the entire project eventually, though they state it will take additional time, effort, and considerations. Open-sourcing would allow anyone to host servers and contribute improvements, making HAWKEN “truly immortal.”
What’s coming in 2026 for Hawakening?
The 2026 preview mentions improved matchmaking, quality-of-life updates, new community-created content, and netcode refinements. Specific features haven’t been detailed, but the team is actively developing based on community feedback.
Why Fan Revivals Matter
Game preservation used to mean physical cartridges sitting on shelves. If you wanted to play Super Mario Bros. in 2026, you just needed a working NES and the cartridge. But always-online games like HAWKEN die completely when servers shut down. There’s no cartridge to preserve. The software becomes useless without infrastructure to connect to.
Publishers rarely maintain legacy servers longer than a few years after player counts drop. Operating costs don’t justify keeping games alive for tiny audiences. But to the people still playing, those games matter. HAWKEN had a dedicated community who loved its unique take on mech combat. When 505 Games shut down servers, those players lost something they cared about.
Fan revivals like Hawakening, Northstar for Titanfall 2, and various World of Warcraft private servers prove that communities can preserve games when publishers won’t. These projects require significant technical skill, legal navigation, and countless volunteer hours. But they ensure games don’t disappear completely just because they stopped being profitable.
The gaming industry needs more projects like Hawakening. Too many excellent games vanish because publishers view them as failed investments rather than cultural artifacts worth preserving. When a studio spends years creating something, when thousands of players find joy in it, when communities form around it, that game deserves to exist beyond its commercial viability.
Hawakening’s 2026 preview shows what passionate fans can accomplish when they refuse to let something they love die. HAWKEN is back. Not through corporate decision-making or publisher benevolence, but because a small team of developers cared enough to rebuild it from the ground up. That’s worth celebrating, supporting, and recognizing as the legitimate preservation work it represents.
If you loved HAWKEN back in the day, check out what Hawakening has accomplished. If you never experienced it, now’s your chance to jump into one of the most unique mech shooters ever made. The servers are running, the community is active, and the game is finally in the hands of people who understand what made it special. Sometimes the best revivals don’t come from the companies that created something. They come from the fans who refuse to let it die.