MechWarrior Reboot Announced

Piranha Games and Smith & Tinker have announced a reboot of the MechWarrior franchise.This, the first mainstream MechWarrior game that’s been seen since 2002’s MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries (as we’re not counting MechAssault) isn’t MechWarrior 5 – it’s a reboot of the franchise titled MechWarrior, and it’s in development for 360 and PC.According to the IGN reveal, the game is set in 3015 and largely takes place on the planet Deshler, “right at the beginning of what will become the Fourth Succession War,” according to Jordan Weisman, co-founder of Smith & Tinker. Players take the role of Adrian Khol, a nobleman who’s a bit of a wildchild – but is forced to grow up when House Kurita invades the planet and slaughters his entire family.Apparently, there’s going to be a big focus on getting the feel of the mechs right, and the team want to make the mechs to genuinely feel huge and powerful.To this end, there’s a sort of RPG progression through the game – you’ll be able to play through the game with any class of mech, and experienced gained in it translates to better accuracy, more damage, and the like, meaning you’re not just rushing towards the heftier beasts, and this will hopefully open up multiple playthroughs with the game changing based on your chosen class.Information warfare is also a focus, with unmanned drones surveying the battlefield mentioned, as well as having scout mechs rely information.In terms of size (of the game, rather than the mechs) the developers want to include a single-player campaign, a four-player co-op campaign, and a full set of multiplayer options, but this will apparently depend on the publisher and budget.There’s not a huge amount in the way of concrete details, but from the trailers and interview, we can expect to see a Jenner, a Warhammer, a Rifleman, and an Atlas Prime.A good MechWarrior game is just what we need. Fingers crossed for this one.