Wow, I did not see this news coming. Sony went and dug deep into the trenches of long forgotten IP that were supposed to come to consoles during seventh gen but didn’t. Hawken was one of those games, alongside the mysteriously abandoned Huxley.

Producer Josh Clausen took to the PlayStation Blog to talk up the appearance of the first-person, battle-arena mech game making its way from PC to PlayStation 4 this July – and not just this July, next week!

Adhesive Games originally released the title on PC as a free-to-play multiplayer game back in late 2012. It struggled to gain prominence, but now it’s making a return to form on home consoles. They released a developer diary explaining what sort of changes the game has undergone and how it’s been extensively retooled to take full advantage of controllers like the DualShock 4. Check it out below.

So they’ve retooled the mech setup so that they now have more of a history and lore to the corporations they’re attached to, along with giving them their own skill trees for players to follow as they progress through the game.

Clausen explains that there’s a lot of mythos behind the Hawken brand and much of it takes place outside of the game, stating in the blog piece…

“Underlying our shooter is a surprisingly enormous and well-developed universe. So much so that there has been a hardback, 100+ page graphic novel, a five issue comic series, and a Brand Bible that covers a several-hundred-year timeline. When I first started on the Hawken project a little over a year ago, I wasn’t aware of this depth, and it’s been satisfying to see that so much thought and effort went into the mythology behind the game.”

In the video above they talk about further integrating Hawken’s illustrious lore more into the game itself. This bit of dialogue is overlaid with images of gameplay that seems to hint at maybe the game getting a story mode… perhaps?

It’s important for Hawken to get in on the mech action while the getting in is good because this game will be trumped pretty badly when Respawn Entertainment drops Titanfall 2 later this year. Now that is one of the few AAA games I’m genuinely looking forward to. It’s another mech title but this time it’s a mech title with heart.

Hawken in my humble opinion has a better looking atmosphere and lore to it, and I think the mechs themselves tell a much more personal story just by looking at their designs in comparison to Titanfall. However, Hawken lacks that almighty story mode and I think that’s going to be the make-it or break-it decision for a lot gamers when it comes time to sticking with the game or playing for a bit and then moseying on elsewhere.

Nevertheless, PS4 gamers get another cool mech title to play throughout the summer as they await the release of Titanfall 2 this autumn. For more info feel free to visit the official Hawken website.