Nearly five years after its original release, mech-shooter Hawken is shutting its doors for good

After a record low player-count, the PC version will be closing in early 2018.

In the genre of mechanized first-person shooters, there's unfortunately really not all that much to explore. Players could scratch that itch by playing a bit of Titanfall 2 (or Overwatch's D.Va, if they're desperate), but otherwise the market has always been a bit empty - and sadly, it's about to become even more vacant. Reloaded Games today announced that the studio's multiplayer mech FPS will soon be closing its doors for good.

The full post as it appeared on Facebook reads:

"Pilots,

It's been an incredible journey since the introduction of Hawken on Steam, back in 2014. The game's success has been largely due to your continuous support. The Hawken community has been the cornerstone of this ever-evolving franchise.

After 3 great years, we are shutting down the PC Steam servers to refocus our development efforts. The PC game will officially be removed on January 2, 2018, and all DLC and purchasable content will also be unavailable starting today.

It's been an incredibly rewarding experience working alongside such a dedicated PC player base. Your feedback and support has been invaluable to us, and the team looks forward to creating more great games based on what we've learned from you.

Thank you all very much for your support!

The Hawken Team"

Hawken originally appeared on YouTube through a work-in-progress trailer that featured the culmination of nine months of work on the then-indie project. An open beta would later release for the game alongside an announcement regarding the release date, which would be optimistically scheduled for December of 2012.

Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as planned. While Hawken would see consistent updates and content over the next couple of years, the game would eventually go dark after the publisher, Meteor Entertainment, would shut down in March of 2014. Hawken was abandoned after that, and while Reloaded Games would pick the title up the following year, no updates would be forthcoming beyond an eventual port of Hawken to the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Despite the somber nature of the announcement, there's ultimately not many people left to care. According to Steam Charts, a whopping 174 players have launched Hawken over the last month - a depressing sum, especially for a free-to-play title. This low player-count is in contrast with the higher numbers on console and are likely a big reason why the PC version is alone in shutting down.