Happy-Go-Lucky Fun Mechwarrior Time

Give me ten seconds and I can list ten game franchises that should never have died: Duke Nukem, Ultima, Wing Commander, Heretic, Oddworld, Descent, Planescape, Baldur’s Gate, System Shock (No, Bioshock isn’t the same), and finally, Mechwarrior.

Well, guess what? It’s confirmed. Prayers have been answered. Pigs have flown. Hell hath frozen over. A reboot of the venerable Mechwarrior franchise is underway at Piranha Games, a developer based in Vancouver. With a snazzy new trailer and a preponderance of heavy ordnance, the news was announced July 9th by the president of Piranha, Russ Bullock, and co-founder of Smith and Tinker, Jordan Weisman. Jordan also co-founded FASA interactive, and helped create the original Mechwarrior games we all know and love.

A Warhammer surveys the ruined cityscape. What lies around the bend?

Based on information from Mektek, the leading Mechwarrior fansite, the game will be a complete reboot, and will take us to the beginning of the Inner Sphere wars. You may recall that the Mechwarrior franchise has gone through many publishers: from Activision, to MicroProse, to Microsoft, who brutally bunged FASA in 2007. Picking up the pieces, Jordan Weisman acquired the rights to Mechwarrior and other titles and founded Smith and Tinker in 2007; now he teams up with Russ Bullock of Piranha games for this venture. Piranha was responsible for the recent Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen game, and although it received terrible reviews, it did in fact have giant fighting robots, so kudos to Piranha.

Based on what I’ve gleaned from the developers, the new game takes place on the planet Deshler, in the year 3015. You’re Adrian Khol, a lascivious nobleman whose lazy attitude is only matched by his apathy for academia and duty. When his family dies in an attack on Deshler, he finally finds his purpose: revenge and the defense of his world .

The new game promises to take full advantage of modern computing power, which speaks volumes considering the last Mechwarrior game came out seven years ago. Using Unreal Engine 3, the game is a looker with bright, clean textures and crisp lighting. From the trailer, it also seems that fully destructible environments will be available, but that is conjecture at this point.

You never want to be at point blank range with an Atlas.

A more dynamic battlefield will be at your fingertips with the use of scouting units, observer drones, and airstrikes. With the availability of enemy position updates, electronic countermeasures, and fire support communications, information will be your most important tool here. The game will also have a sort of incentive aspect to it as well, as it will reward you for staying with one type of mech with better armor and firepower. According to Weisman, the game will also not penalize you for choosing a light, small mech in the beginning of the game because it will adjust itself based on the mechs you pick and the choices you make in customization.

Interface-wise, the game will retain the sim style that has been a hallmark of the entire franchise. No cartoony arcade controls here. The developers really want you to feel as though you’ll pilot a truly gigantic machine with untold firepower at your command. Weisman also stated that Smith and Tinker have multiplayer fully in mind, so look forward to fighting with your buddies in co-op and skirmish modes.

As the battle spills out onto the streets, two Mechwarrors lock into close combat.

The trailer shows in-game footage (as opposed to a cinematic), and although it’s a preliminary look at the graphics, it makes the game look quite impressive when it shows rockets flying across the screen, great particle renders, and dense smoke-obscuring vision. This game has giant robot porn written all over it. There’s no information as to how many mechs will be available in the game, but I can tell you, just from watching the trailer, I saw a Jenner (light, fast mech), a Warhammer, a Rifleman (both heavy, hard hitting mechs) and an Atlas (an ultra-powerful heavy assault mech of ancient design). The developers know their material, and pull their information from the entire battletech universe. I, for one, cannot wait to sit in a battlemech again.