Early Access Retrospective: A New, Improved HAWKED

You might have heard that HAWKED is heading for launch on February 15! Before we step out into this brave new world beyond Early Access, we want to reflect on this phase, and all the improvements your playtime helped us deliver in time for the launch build.

We want to extend a massive thank you to all the Renegades who stepped up to loot X-Isle (for good!) on Steam and MY.GAMES Launcher ahead of the full release. We received a deluge of feedback, reports, and suggestions that directly led to a whole lot of patches and hotfixes, each positively bursting with bug fixes, balance changes, new game features, and lots more. 

Let’s take a look at how far we’ve come, the successes and new improvements delivered in Early Access, and where the road ahead leads in 2024.

Major Changes in Early Access

While you outfoxed Disciples and rivals in pursuit of the ultimate prize, we gathered your feedback to improve HAWKED. Over the course of large patches launching almost every week since November 30 and heaps of hotfixes, we kept diving back under the hood to make sure HAWKED was purring along nicely. Ultimately, we have a lot to show for it!

• Matchmaking Improvements: During busy periods, matchmaking prioritizes getting players into fully populated matches with low ping and shorter waiting times. Matchmaking may take slightly longer in quieter periods, but matches will not be fully populated to prioritize low ping and a better play experience. Once HAWKED launches on more platforms, and with crossplay enabled, we expect matchmaking to be an even better experience. In addition to all this, we made changes to improve the early match experience in matches with low player counts.
• Stability Updates: HAWKED is running a lot more smoothly than its first weeks, with limited crashes and improved server and client stability.
• Descriptions: We added details about buffs to make it clear how much Gear and Artifacts can impact your Loadout.
• Balancing: Gear, Boosters, Artifacts, Weapons, and Glyphs have been assessed and tweaked thanks to your combat tests. We’ll continue to monitor the meta and make adjustments as necessary to keep HAWKED fair, competitive, and thrilling.
• Frame Drops Reduced: Enjoy a silkier, smoother experience on all platforms.
• Contracts: In response to your requests for more things to do in-match, we added this new feature on December 21. Chat with Nellie Ruffin to undertake Contracts for lucrative rewards, with players who complete the most Contracts scoring a place on the leaderboard.
• Movement & Traversal: It’s easier to get around X-Isle than ever before, and without visual glitches and gameplay-impacting issues. If you’re jumping for joy, we’re pleased to say that’s been improved too, with jump heights being doubled and parkour being improved. Additionally, we polished animations and sharpened object collision and hit registration.
• Oceania Server: We were thrilled to properly welcome Renegades down under to X-Isle with a dedicated server, a direct result of player requests.
• Limited-Time Events: Even the Disciples got into the holiday spirit back in December. In our first limited-time event, Holiday Heist, Renegades could hunt down the Grunch, an especially mischievous Shroudbasker that stole away with presents from the Riftwake. Holiday Heist was a great proving ground for our future event structure, from giving out exclusive quest rewards to broader changes to the Riftwake and X-Isle and releasing new story events outside of Issues. Look forward to more of this in the future!

These are just a few of the highlights of fixes and improvements made in Early Access. We also squashed enough bugs to feed a family of Disciples for a year and made many more incremental improvements that you can read up on in the patch notes. 

As well as the Day 1 Update on February 15, we have plans for further new features and improvements, including an ongoing UI revamp, and improved in-game news delivery. We’re always listening to our fantastic community of Renegades, so if you have any requests or feedback to share, let us know on Discord and social media!

What’s Next for HAWKED in 2024?

There’s plenty of loot yet to be had on X-Isle, and we’ve just announced that HAWKED is moving full steam ahead to a launch on February 15, with plenty of launch activities to look forward to.

Beyond this, we have a loaded 2024 ready for you with even more improvements, new features, and epic changes to X-Isle en route:

• Q1 2024: HAWKED launches worldwide on Windows PC, PS5, PS4, and Xbox Series X|S with a Day One Update on February 15. Issue #1: Renegades, the first part of Book One of the HAWKED saga, continues with new questlines, plus exclusive rewards to be earned from the Renegade Pass.
• Q2 2024: Face VEKTR, wield powerful weapons, and discover new features like Ranked PvP. Steam Deck support is also coming!
• Q3 2024: X-Isle goes into the Fringe! Discover new storylines, locations, enemies, weapons, and the Crafting feature.
• Q4 2024: Book One goes out with a major bang! Glimpse a new world map, wield Fringe Tech, play a limited-time event, and more.

Check out the full 2024 Roadmap for a more detailed breakdown of what’s coming up for HAWKED in 2024.

If you played HAWKED in Early Access, thank you for bringing us to this crucial milestone. This one’s for you! If you’re joining us now, we’re just getting warmed up. We can’t wait to see you on the Riftwake when HAWKED launches on February 15.

Until then, come meet the rest of the Renegades on Discord, or follow us on TikTok, Reddit, Twitch, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and subscribe to our YouTube channel for the latest videos. There’s already loot to be had from our official newsletter with a FREE Ace Archaeologist Hat, and the latest news and more sent straight to your inbox!