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Heavy Gear Assault is a first-person multiplayer mech simulator that’s slated for release on PC, Mac and Linux next year. It’s set in the Heavy Gear universe that has been established through a series of tabletop, role-playing and card games, created by a hobby-games publisher called Dream Pod in 1994.
In the late ‘90s, Activision published two Heavy Gear videogames, following which the series went into hibernation. Assault is the first Heavy Gear videogame to be released in over a decade, and is being developed using Unreal Engine 4.
Heavy Gear Assault is being developed by Stompy Bot Productions, and is focused on the e-Sports scene with its emphasis solely on multiplayer. The game will let the player extensively customize their mech—called a “Gear”—and then take it online to battle against others. In addition to regular movement, Gears make use of their secondary movement systems, which come in the form of wheels or treads under their feet. They can naturally also be outfitted with a variety of weapons.
Since Heavy Gear Assault is entirely multiplayer-focused, Stompy Bot will be designing different kinds of social features to help players build a community for the game. Players will be able to create profiles, stream their matches and rate other players, while spectators will be allowed to “sponsor” their favourites using in-game currency as well as place bounties on the heads of unsporting players.
Heavy Gear Assault will be released as a free-to-play game, with upgrades and items available for purchase using real money. Additionally, a Premium Subscription will be available as well, which will allow you to avail discounts on items, invitations to prestigious tournaments and earn in-game currency and experience at a faster rate.
This morning, Stompy Bot launched a Kickstarter campaign to help fund Heavy Gear Assault. On the game’s Kickstarter page, they say: “Mech games are pretty much dead according to large publishers. We aim to prove them wrong and to show them that the community has an insatiable appetite for mega-ton destruction. We want to push the technological envelope and show everyone what a true mech game can and ought to be. “
The Kickstarter campaign is being run in parallel to a separate crowdfunding campaign on Heavy Gear Assault’s official website. You can view that here.
