Perhaps setting a new precedent in the video game industry, Warner Premiere have announced that they’ve secured the rights to do a web series based on Hawken. After gathering up buzz when it was revealed nearly a year and a half ago, the mech based action of Hawken has already gone on to receive a comic book series via Archaia, a loosely tie-in arcade pad, and now it’s receiving a top line web series via the same studio that gave us Mortal Kombat: Legacy. So is Hawken truly the next great thing or is it merely set up for mass amounts of trans-media disappointment?
Coming to us via Warner Premiere, the Hawken web series will be produced by WB Digital Distribution, DJ2 Entertainment, and Silver Pictures’ new sub-division Cooper Media. Those who love action movies may recognize Silver Pictures as they’ve produce a few small action movies over the years such as the Lethal Weapon franchise, The Matrix trilogy, and the god tier film that is Speed Racer. So yeah, we may see stuff go boom galore in the Hawken web series.
Despite being announced in a grand and rather surprising fashion, Warner Premiere didn’t disclose any additional info on the Hawken web series. It’s unknown at this point whether the series will feature live-action elements, presumably shot heavily with the assistance of greenscreen, or if it’ll be presented to us in an animated form. Whatever type of format is chosen for Hawken I doubt Warner Premiere will skimp out on the project seeing as how they dumped a load of money into MK: Legacy.
While Hawken may be bound to PC gamers this December when it’s released as a free-to-play title a release date or general window wasn’t revealed for the web series. I highly doubt we’ll see the series hit this December since it’ll be tough to put together a solid live-action or animated project in less than four months unless it’s given a colossal budget and a simply epic production team.
What I do find interesting about this news is why Warner Premiere decided to produce a Hawken web series. As a new IP Hawken doesn’t have a huge amount of mindshare amongst gamers nor does it honestly have a gripping tale that’s ripe for a web series. I did manage to play Hawken quite extensively at E3 this year and while I enjoyed it there didn’t seem to be much of a story at all as things were presented in a nice “team a vs. team b” fashion. So will the general universe of Hawken be expanded upon in a smart way via this web series or will we get a run of the mill plot meant to be a commercial for the game?
More importantly I wonder if the interest WB has in Hawken will go beyond the web series. This generation WB has been running a rather cohesive unit with most of their games being tied to major franchises or their major live-action franchises getting the game treatment at some point. Hawken may be set for the PC as a f2p game, but will we see WB step up to the plate and release a Hawken sequel down the road for the next-gen consoles?
I was impressed with Hawken as a game, but all these pre-release multimedia announcements do strike me as odd. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it’s unjustified, but who honestly thought a mech game would ever drum up this much interest?
