Star Wars: Hunters is a squad-based arena shooter. Set between the events of Episode VI and Episode VII, players fight in settings inspired by Star Wars locations.[5] The game features a diverse set of characters including a Wookiee warrior, a Dark Side Force user, a bounty hunter, and an Imperial Stormtrooper.[6]
Development
On August 18, 2018, Zynga and Disney brokered a deal for a Star Wars game on mobile to be developed by Zynga and its subsidiary NaturalMotion.[7]Star Wars: Hunters was formally announced during the Nintendo Direct presentation on February 17, 2021 with a teaser trailer with initial plans to release the game by the end of 2021.[8][5] The first gameplay footage was shown off in September 2021 after during an Apple Event while showcasing the iPad Mini. A cinematic trailer was released shortly after depicting some of the characters featured in the game, including the Sith warrior, Rieve and Mandalorian, Aran Tal.[9]
In late 2021, Star Wars: Hunters was soft-launched on Android devices in India, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, and Indonesia.[10] Despite this, on July 18, 2022, Zynga announced that the official release of Star Wars: Hunters would be delayed until 2023.[11][12] However, the game did not release, and on November 8, 2023, Zynga's parent company, Take-Two Interactive, announced during its quarterly earnings call that Star Wars: Hunters had been once again delayed and is now scheduled to release in 2024.[13][14]
A tech demo of Hunters was shown at Game Developers Conference 2024's State of Unreal, confirming that the game will run on an unspecified iteration of the Unreal Engine.[2] Weeks later, Zynga announced that the game would finally launch on June 4, after multiple delays.[1]
Reception
Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the game a score of 57 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[15]