Hawken is being closed and removed from Steam in January

It's been well over a year since we last reported on the stylish mech shooter Hawken, which itself was preceded by almost a full year of silence from developer Reloaded Games. Things have happened since then: In April the studio announced plans for the first update to the PC version of the game in two years, and began a "soft launch" in May which was meant to lead into a full "relaunch."

Today, however, the developers announced that the bright future promised earlier this year is about to go completely dark. "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," the Hawken team announced on Facebook.

"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."

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Hawken was first revealed to the world in 2011 with a "work-in-progress" trailer that looked so great, we called it "the best mech game we've seen." It pulled in big bucks on even bigger expectations, but never caught fire after it went into open beta. Original publisher Meteor Entertainment went under in early 2014, and that was that until Reloaded picked it up a year later.

PS4 and Xbox One versions of Hawken were released in July 2016, and the good news, such as it is, is that it sounds like they'll be sticking around for now, since the closure announcement refers specifically to the PC version of the game. It doesn't say anything about exactly why the plug is being pulled, but the obvious likelihood is simply that nobody is playing it: The average concurrent player count on Steam has been in decline for years, and hit a low of just 86 last month.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.