Star Wars Hunters May Have Timed Its PC Release Poorly

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home November 30, 2024 15 Views 7 Min Read
Star Wars Hunters May Have Timed Its PC Release Poorly



After a few delays, the free-to-play arena shooter Star Wars: Hunters was released for Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android earlier this year. Although the game’s launch wasn’t met with much fanfare within mainstream gaming circles, it appeared to have attracted a large-enough playerbase. Zynga and NaturalMotion, the developers behind Star Wars: Hunters, have consistently supported the game throughout 2024. Its most recent update, which went live on November 25, added a new playable character, an original map, and a brand-new Holo-Arcade mode, among other things. On top of all this, Star Wars: Hunters is going to be released on a new platform in the near future.




On November 26, Zynga officially announced that Star Wars: Hunters was finally coming to Windows PCs via Steam, more than six months after its initial launch. This version of the game, which is scheduled to release on January 27, 2025, will contain various PC-specific features, such as higher-resolution textures, improved shadows, keybinding options, Xbox controller support, and high detail layers in certain arenas. The formerly Switch-exclusive shooter will launch in Steam’s Early Access program and won’t receive a 1.0 version on PC until mid-2025. While it’s great that Star Wars: Hunters is soon going to be accessible on more platforms, its PC port is potentially being released at an inopportune time.

star wars hunters could be sitting on a gold mine of future content

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Star Wars: Hunters Could Be Sitting On a Goldmine of Future Content

Star Wars: Hunters, the recently-released free-to-play arena shooter from Zynga, has a lot of untapped potential in one major area.

Star Wars: Hunters Will Face Some Stiff Competition on PC


The Upcoming Hero Shooter Marvel Rivals is Releasing Near Star Wars: Hunters

Star Wars: Hunters is a live service game, so naturally, it will face a lot of competition when it hits PC. In fact, just one month before the Zynga-developed game makes its debut on the platform, Marvel Rivals will be released on Steam. For those who are out of the loop, Marvel Rivals is an upcoming PvP hero shooter developed by NetEase Games, the developer of Diablo Immortal and Once Human. Like Star Wars: Hunters, this game is free-to-play and is based on a highly-popular Disney property. It, however, appears to be gaining a lot more traction than Zynga’s recently-released arena shooter.

During a playtest in July 2024, Marvel Rivals reached a concurrent player count of over 50,000 on Steam, which was similar to the amount of players that games like Destiny 2 and Warframe received on the same platform in a given month. What made this statistic even more impressive was that Marvel Rivals‘ playtest wasn’t public. Players actually had to sign up and be selected by NetEase in order to try the game out. One can only imagine how much higher Marvel Rivals‘ player count would be if the beta test was open to everyone.


Marvel Rivals Could Eat into Star Wars: Hunters’ Mind Share on PC, So a Delay May Be Ideal

Because Marvel Rivals technically isn’t in the same genre as Star Wars: Hunters, some may not consider the two games competitors. However, both titles are third-person shooters attached to massive pop culture franchises, and, therefore, may have some overlap in terms of target audiences. Star Wars: Hunters is doing decently, but it hasn’t set the world on fire at the moment. Marvel Rivals, on the other hand, looks like it’s going to be the next big live service hit. If NetEase’s upcoming hero shooter does become a huge success as its high player counts suggest, then it may end up eating Star Wars: Hunters‘ lunch, given that the games are releasing close to each other on PC.

It looks like 2025 is going to be incredibly stacked when it comes to video games, but there haven’t been a lot of major live service titles dated for the first half of the year. Taking this into account, it may be better for Zynga to push Star Wars: Hunters‘ PC launch back by a few months in order to give the game more breathing room, away from Marvel Rivals and other, similar titles. March seems like a pretty vacant month so far, especially on PC, so it may be an ideal time to bring a free-to-play live service shooter like Star Wars: Hunters to a new platform.


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