Another live service shooter comes to a premature end: Steel Hunters, the mech game that launched into early access in April, is closing in October
Just over six months after the free-to-play mech shooter Steel Hunters was revealed to the world with a spectacular trailer at the 2024 Game Awards, and three months after launching into early access, developer Wargaming has seen enough, and it's pulling the plug.
"Today we share difficult news: we've made the decision to sunset Steel Hunter," the studio wrote on Steam. "You've given us so much passion and support but unfortunately we've come to the conclusion that continuing development is not sustainable. We know this isn't the news anyone wanted to hear and we genuinely share in your disappointment."
It's an unfortunate end to a game that showed some real potential. PC Gamer contributors Rick Lane and Aron Garst both described Steel Hunters as a "more tactical" take on the genre than is seen in many other mech games, with unit mobility taking a distinct back seat to considered movement and coordination. But Rick felt the game was "undermined by boring loot," while Aron preferred the more action-focused approach of Mecha Break.
In the end, it seems that Steel Hunters simply failed to resonate. SteamDB indicates that it hit a peak concurrent player count of 4,479 at launch, which quickly tumbled down to just a few hundred at a time, and more recently even less than that. That's nowhere near the biggest live service failure of all time—Concord lasted just a couple weeks before the axe fell on it in 2024—but as Wargaming said, those numbers are definitely not sustainable.
The Steel Hunters servers will stay online for the next 90 days—until October 8—and every mech in the game will be unlocked for all players, including some that still haven't been publicly revealed. Support for custom games is also on the way, "so you can play with your friends, set up community matches and create some final memories together," and a "goodbye tournament" is also being planned. Details on that will be shared "soon" on the Steel Hunters Discord.