Steel Hunters, The World Of Tanks Developer's Mech Shooter, Is Getting Shut Down

Mech-based shooters have been a competitive space lately, and not everyone will be able to make the cut.

Late last year, at The Game Awards 2024, World of Tanks and World of Warships developer Wargaming revealed a new free-to-play mecha-based PvPvE hero shooter called Steel Hunters.

The game was meant to combine elements of extraction shooters, hero shooters, and battle royales, putting players in teams of two controlling fully fleshed-out giant mech characters called Hunters.

However, things haven’t been going as Wargaming planned, and they posted an announcement on the game’s Steam page that it is going to be shut down.

Shutting Down In Three Months

Steel Hunters just released in early access roughly three months ago, at the start of April, and, according to the announcement, servers will remain live for another 90 days, to be shut down on or around October 9.

Unfortunately, given the game’s performance on Steam, it’s not that much of a surprise that this is happening, considering it’s had “Mixed” reviews ever since early access began.

The player count has also heavily declined since its peak at launch of 4,479 players, with a day-to-day peak hovering around 100 players. Not really enough to support a multiplayer-only game, especially not one with aspirations of being a battle royale.

This announcement is also coming just days after the full release of Mecha Break, which is continuing to steadily pull in strong numbers in spite of also having mixed reviews, showing how well a mech-based shooter can do on Steam.

Gundam-Style Shooter Mecha Break Release Date Announced

Mecha Break finally had its release date revealed during Summer Games Fest 2025, giving Gundam Wing and robot anime lovers their dream game.

Between now and the shutdown of the Steel Hunters servers in October, Wargaming has a few plans to thank the few players who have stuck with the game.

One thing they’ve got planned is to add support for custom games, allowing players to host games with friends and set up community matches.

They’re also adding a game mode with all the available Hunters playable for everyone, including some that would have never made it to release otherwise.

Finally, they will be hosting a “farewell tournament” to celebrate the game’s community. More details on that event will be released at a later date on the Steel Hunters Discord server.