MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries announced!

Derangel

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As the title says, Piranha Games has announced MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. A new single player MechWarrior title. It will release in 2018. Here is what the official site has to say:

Humanity has expanded to the stars, colonizing a vast region of space known as the Inner Sphere. Where the Star League once ruled in relative stability, generations of countless wars, alliances, and betrayals have divided the Inner Sphere into five distinct Successor States. These states, also known as the Great Houses, have fought and quarreled for centuries over the remnants of the Star League and control of the Inner Sphere. They are now in the midst of a Third Succession War, one which has been raging for almost 150 years.



While the battlefields of the Inner Sphere burn with an array of devastating weaponry, none is more formidable than the BattleMech. These immense fighting machines, piloted by elite fighters known as MechWarriors, dominate the wars of the future with enough firepower to annihilate entire cities.

In MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries you will adopt the role of a rookie MechWarrior pilot thrust into combat as the Third Succession War continues to fracture the Inner Sphere. Take contracts from the factions of your choosing and engage in tactical, first-person, PvE ‘Mech combat through an immersive, career-based Mercenary campaign driven by player choice. Victory, prestige, and profit will not only require skill on the battlefield, but in the acquisition, maintenance, and enhancement of your BattleMechs.

Set for release in 2018, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is under development by a dedicated development team at Piranha Games. MechWarrior Online, Piranha’s existing F2P multiplayer-focused tactical ‘Mech combat game, will continue its ongoing live development by the MWO team at Piranha.


With the factual information out of the way:

Holy crap! Between this and the stuff at Sony's Playstation Experience today has been insane when it comes to game aoouncements. The pre-alpha footage looks so nice. There isn't too much to take away from it other than it looks nice graphically and does feel a bit like the old MechWarrior games. I've been dying for a new single-player MechWarrior game for a long time. I really hope this turns out good, it's been a long time since we've had a good mech game that focuses on single player. Obviously some parts of the footage looks a bit rough, but it does seem like they're potentially off to a good start.
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Video:

Pre-Alpa footage


Gameplay demo
(thanks Boocake)

Mechcon 2017 trailer


Articles:

Destructoid preview
https://www.destructoid.com/hands-on-with-mechwarrior-5-mercenaries-477102.phtml
 
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Please let this be good, please let this be good, please...
 
Two minor gripes with the trailer after watching...Graphics already look dated, and...no core meltdown explosion, WTF! :p
 
Two minor gripes with the trailer after watching...Graphics already look dated, and...no core meltdown explosion, WTF! :p

As a long-term veteran of BattleTech, in a community with actual physicists in it..

Stackpole Rule aside, fusion engines don't explode. The worst that'll happen is that the core and casing will slag during an uncontrolled shutdown and everything in range gets a healthy dose of ionizing radiation..
 
Well, it is pre-alpha. They have 2 years to polish it up.
 
The only part of the graphics that I felt was particularly bad was the heat distortion field coming from the mech as it powered up. The distortion was solid and didn't have waves within in. If the effect is playing during the actually gameplay then I can see why they would skimp on that for performance reasons.
 
The only part of the graphics that I felt was particularly bad was the heat distortion field coming from the mech as it powered up. The distortion was solid and didn't have waves within in. If the effect is playing during the actually gameplay then I can see why they would skimp on that for performance reasons.


it looked more like liquid but i can see what they tried it do. but doesn't look bad at all for being alpha stage.
 
The mech game still to beat is the original Mechwarrior.

Mechwarrior 2 sucked... I haven't tried 3 or 4 or the expansions. Anybody here think, in regards to gameplay, that 3 or 4 were better than the original?
 
The mech game still to beat is the original Mechwarrior.

Mechwarrior 2 sucked... I haven't tried 3 or 4 or the expansions. Anybody here think, in regards to gameplay, that 3 or 4 were better than the original?

I don't remember the original well enough but I do remember loving the hell out of 4 and 4: Mercenaries. 3 as well, but most of my fond memories come from 4.
 
I don't remember the original well enough but I do remember loving the hell out of 4 and 4: Mercenaries. 3 as well, but most of my fond memories come from 4.

The thing I liked about the first one was that there were basically unlimited missions. You could just keep playing and playing.

Going to try out 3 and 4 now. Do either of those have randomly generated missions like the original?
 
The thing I liked about the first one was that there were basically unlimited missions. You could just keep playing and playing.

Going to try out 3 and 4 now. Do either of those have randomly generated missions like the original?
No they don't. I think I remember 4 having a custom battle option against NPCs but it wasn't really a "mission" just a big ol' slugfest.

Are you playing 3 in a VM? I couldn't get it working right the last time I tried (Win 7pro). I could get through the initial missions then I hit one of the underground cave missions with enemy elementals jumpjetting around and it crashed no matter what I tried.
 
I remember playing the original Mechwarrior on my 486... flat shaded polygons and PC speaker FTW! cyclone3d is right, it was great because there was a lot of worlds to travel to if I recall. Only thing that wasn't great was the somewhat limited selection of mechs.
 
No they don't. I think I remember 4 having a custom battle option against NPCs but it wasn't really a "mission" just a big ol' slugfest.

Are you playing 3 in a VM? I couldn't get it working right the last time I tried (Win 7pro). I could get through the initial missions then I hit one of the underground cave missions with enemy elementals jumpjetting around and it crashed no matter what I tried.

Bummer. The basically unlimited missions you could go on was my favorite part. The pay was negotiable, and you could choose whatever mission from the list that you wanted so you could build up your inventory and money on hand. The higher your rating, the more money you could get per missions. And even if you followed the story line and finished the game, you could keep playing.

I was going to try it in Windows 10, but if that didn't work, I could set it up on either my XP machine or my DOS/Win98SE machine.

I remember playing the original Mechwarrior on my 486... flat shaded polygons and PC speaker FTW! cyclone3d is right, it was great because there was a lot of worlds to travel to if I recall. Only thing that wasn't great was the somewhat limited selection of mechs.

Multiple factions if I remember correctly. I haven't played it in years. Something for my DOS/Win98SE retro system.
 
Yeah, seems like all the standard houses were represented. I do not believe the clans had come into the picture yet, however.
 
The mech game still to beat is the original Mechwarrior.

Mechwarrior 2 sucked... I haven't tried 3 or 4 or the expansions. Anybody here think, in regards to gameplay, that 3 or 4 were better than the original?

You take that back sir! MW2 was awesome.

Ok, it did have some warts but it was some of the best graphics pre-Quake and was definitely one of the games that got me into up[grading PCs

3 was pretty good but was hard in a cheesy kinda way (outnumbered 4 to 1 and ambushed almost every mission) and basically forced you to cheese the AI right back, especially the expansion.

4 was better balanced but lacked character somewhat. They were set in the FedCom civil war so extra cheesy stories and lots of the newer mechs and tech that were less inspire.

I never played the original but the heavier RPG elements would be nice to have in a future game. Harebrained's turn based Battletech may be the game to look out for in that regard.
 
As a long-term veteran of BattleTech, in a community with actual physicists in it..

Stackpole Rule aside, fusion engines don't explode. The worst that'll happen is that the core and casing will slag during an uncontrolled shutdown and everything in range gets a healthy dose of ionizing radiation..

Science aside, it's just one of those things I came to expect from a Mechwarrior title.
 
The mech game still to beat is the original Mechwarrior.

Mechwarrior 2 sucked... I haven't tried 3 or 4 or the expansions. Anybody here think, in regards to gameplay, that 3 or 4 were better than the original?

Negative.

I spent hours upon hours playing Mechwarrior 2. When I got a new P100 machine that game was one of the first games that I went out and bought.

I don't remember too much about it now being as it was about 20 years ago but I do remember playing the hell out of that game. I loved that game. I look at it now and wonder how I could have been so enthralled by the graphics and gameplay but that's just progression I suppose.

On a side note, I do miss Virtual World. Being in a cockpit playing a Mechwarrior style game kind of ruined me for Mechwarrior games. With all that being said, I never played another Mechwarrior game after that.

This looks pretty cool though.
 
Two minor gripes with the trailer after watching...Graphics already look dated, and...no core meltdown explosion, WTF! :p

They got rid of it in MWO. I kind of wish it was a perk of intentionally blowing up your mech to damage other nearby mechs.
 
I could see them removing core meltdowns for a MP game for balance reasons. Maybe for this SP game they will return.
 
as someone that started playing MWO again recently, hopefully they learn to make the UI not be a cluttered mess
 
Negative.

I spent hours upon hours playing Mechwarrior 2. When I got a new P100 machine that game was one of the first games that I went out and bought.

I don't remember too much about it now being as it was about 20 years ago but I do remember playing the hell out of that game. I loved that game. I look at it now and wonder how I could have been so enthralled by the graphics and gameplay but that's just progression I suppose.

On a side note, I do miss Virtual World. Being in a cockpit playing a Mechwarrior style game kind of ruined me for Mechwarrior games. With all that being said, I never played another Mechwarrior game after that.

This looks pretty cool though.

I still have a CD copy of MW2 Mercenaries. I got it way back in the day. I never could get into it as it was not near as fun as MW1 was. Sure the graphics were better, but the gameplay was not near as good.
 
I still have a CD copy of MW2 Mercenaries. I got it way back in the day. I never could get into it as it was not near as fun as MW1 was. Sure the graphics were better, but the gameplay was not near as good.

Well I suppose that could be true. I never actually played the original MW to compare it to as I didn't have a computer up until shortly after the release of MW2: 31st Century combat and I skipped Mercenaries. I just remember logging too many hours on that game. I'd like to see this one get me back into it again.
 
I remember MW2 being pretty good too in its day. It is the only MW game I have played however so take that with a grain of salt.
 
They got rid of it in MWO. I kind of wish it was a perk of intentionally blowing up your mech to damage other nearby mechs.
In the novels it rarely happens. I remember one scene where it was done intentionally (the pilot overheated their mech on purpose and charged the enemy while allowing it to hit their center torso).
 
My biggest concern about Mechwarrrior 5 is the developers, these are the guys that seriously ruined Mechwarrior Online.
 
If they'd take some cues from how the MW: Living Legends crew did their mod, I'll be a happy camper.
 
I really want to like this but I'm not sure it can compete with the game my child mind was playing! Damn I had fun with the original titles.
But I had even more fun with Heavy Gear... It was basically what I wished mech warrior had become.
 
A rush of nostalgia just came over me! Loved all of these games. Titanfall 2 has filled that need for me as of late. Would love to see the franchise properly brought back.

This and Command & Conquer were my absolute favorites.
 
Science aside, it's just one of those things I came to expect from a Mechwarrior title.

Yep. Thank Mike Stackpole.

*Bang!* *KABOOM!*
*Bang!* *KABOOM!*
*Bang!* *KABOOM!*
*Bang!* *KABOOM!*

Why are we using mechs again?

:cool:
 
on a side note, someone told me the novels are going to start back up again after a lull the past few years
 
I know I'm an oddball on this one but literally the only Mechwarrior game I ever really played was Mechwarrior 4: mercenaries. I've probably put 200 hours into it. Can not describe in words how excited I am for this.
 
I know I'm an oddball on this one but literally the only Mechwarrior game I ever really played was Mechwarrior 4: mercenaries. I've probably put 200 hours into it. Can not describe in words how excited I am for this.


i'm sure most people are in the same boat as you, i started with mechwarrior 3 when my uncle showed it to me.. got hooked on mechwarrior 4 for a few years though till less and less people were playing it. but then MWLL mod for crysis came out a few years later which was closer to battletech then it was mechwarrior but was fun as hell til crytek screwed the pooch and ruined it.
 
The mech game still to beat is the original Mechwarrior.

Mechwarrior 2 sucked... I haven't tried 3 or 4 or the expansions. Anybody here think, in regards to gameplay, that 3 or 4 were better than the original?

*in old man voice* Earthsiege was better dagumit,
 
Unless my memory is fuzzy, MechWarrior 2 was one of the games that had support for that newfangled 3DFX Voodoo card. I enjoyed that quite a lot.

I remember reading my friends Battletech books and even made a few loadouts for mechs, but never actually played the board game (pen and paper game? Not sure what to call it). I'd play MechWarrior 5, and would really like to see some Hotas support if possible.
 
Tabletop game is the correct description I think, its got figurines and dies.
 
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