Starhawk is a third-person shooter action game developed by LightBox Interactive and Santa Monica Studio and is set to be released on May 8 in North America and 9th & 10th for the PAL Regions. Starhawk is the spiritual successor of Warhawk.
Development
After the release of Warhawk fans wanted a "Starhawk" and in March 2009 Kotaku received a rumour stating that Starhawk was indeed in development by the newly-created LightBox Interactive but founder Dylan Jobe didn't comment one month later Sony was seen registered the name "Starhawk" further pointing out that there was a game coming.
In May 2011, the game was officially announced and was stated for a 2012 release. Later at E3 2011, Sony released a new trailer.
Synopsis
In a few hundred years in a future, Human beings have started colonizing other planets, the game is set in a colonized planet called "Frontier" where miners are searching for a powerful substance called "Rift Energy" the miners are commonly called the Rifters. However since the energy is incredibly powerful it has began to mutate some miners and they formed a group called "The Outcasts", Who are supposedly protecting the Rift Energy and will stop at nothing to protect it.
The hero of the game is Emmett Graves, a man who was running a rift mine on the Frontier alongside his brother. But as is unfortunate and common on the Frontier, the farm was attacked by an Outcast war party. The rig exploded and both Emmett and his brother became infected with rift energy, which partially corrupted their bodies and to some degree turned them into the mutants known as the Outcasts. The brothers' technical engineer, Sydney Cutter, who was on a drop ship up witnessing these events, made a racial slur against the Outcast warband, calling them "mangy creatures". Instead of trying to fix the Rift Mine he then became a hired gun.
Gameplay
Starhawk is multiplayer-based third-person shooter (similar to Uncharted) however the gameplay stays true to t Warhawk's style only a few changes have been made firstly the "build and battle" which means players can create structures from sniper towers to barriers having a some sort of RTS element to it.
Private Beta
The Private Beta is available to anyone who has played Warhawk on their PSN account and "loyal Warhawk fans" will get opted in for an email, however the beta will be slow-roled meaning some players wont get an email on Day One those who did will get to play Capture The Flag on two maps: Acid Sea and Space. To learn how to play in the private beta, go read Intro To Private Beta
Reception
IGN gave it a 9/10
Gameinformer gave it a 7.5/10
Machinima gave it a 6/10
Pre-Release
Starhawk won Best Multiplayer of E3 2011 from G4.