Conventional hardmetals consist of the ceramic hard phase WC and the metallic binder Co with only small amounts of other carbides and elements to alter their properties. Powder compacts are usually sintered in vacuum and oxygen free atmospheres for several hours at temperatures that allow liquid phase sintering. An alternative route for producing hardmetals is their in-situ formation from the elements during the sintering process. While this has been successfully realized via established sintering techniques, no approach has been carried out so far using field assisted sintering technique (FAST). Therefore, direct current sintering (DCS) was used in this work to synthesize hardmetals from W, C and Ni elemental powder mixtures by reactive sintering. To gain insight into the formation mechanisms, the influences of different sintering parameters and carbon content of the starting material on phase composition, microstructure and mechanical properties were studied. Results show that it is possible to obtain dense and two phase hardmetals via this in-situ method at temperatures that are within the solid phase area. The WC morphologies, which have an essential impact on the mechanical properties, vary from nano to micron sized angular grains with partial platelet formation. Hence, the in-situ prepared hardmetals via DCS are a new way to modify properties of hardmetals.