Mechwarrior resurgence
Written July 11, 2009
Mechwarrior: For real heavy metal enthusiasts
Two big pieces of news on the Mechwarrior front!
First of all IGN has dropped the scoop on the new Mechwarrior reboot, to be developed by Smith and Tinker Inc and Piranha Games. Now while it’s true that Piranha Games may have been responsible for the less-than-rave-reviewed Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen game, the preview video (which touts itself as in-game footage) look pretty damn fine. Nice to see that the traditional eject and watch your mech explode stays untouched, too!
IGN has also posted up a Q&A with the game’s developers which is a fairly interesting read if you used to enjoy the games. Here’s a snip:
IGN: The trailer that we were shown starts during 3015, which is still within the Third Succession War. That would actually place it before the first MechWarrior game in the established franchise history. Is this a full reboot of the series, or is this trailer a highlight that sets the action and then starts the gameplay later in the established history?
Jordan Weisman: It’s definitely a re-launch. I mean, twenty five years of any soap opera, especially space opera, can become pretty difficult for new players to become involved in. We wanted to take the opportunity to re-launch, or as Russ phrased it, redact the universe. Introduce it at the kind of accessible level it was when we first introduced the universe twenty five years ago. This is not unlike what we’ve seen most recently with Star Trek, Iron Man, Spider-Man… All franchises which, as they reach out to a new audience, need to create an accessible origin story for their beginnings. So that’s where we wanted to go to, it’s right at the beginning. Actually, the story starts just as Hanse Davion comes to power, so it is just, as you said, at the end of the Third, right at the beginning of what will become the Fourth Succession War.
Read the full interview here, there’s some interesting stuff. So it’s a reboot with a possible new direction, but it’s definitely a step back to huge mech battling action, and that can only be a good thing.
Which leads us to our second piece of awesome Mechwarrior news, which is that MekTek.Net, the popular Mechwarrior fan mod site, has been green-lighted to re-release Mechwarrior 4 on Battletech.com. The cherry on the pie? It’ll be for free, and include all the available mods, official and otherwise. How’s that for a double slice of awesome? This will be on my download list the moment it’s announced.
Speaking of, there’s actually no word of when Mechwarrior 4 will be available, other than “soon”, so we’ll have to wait for an official date on this one.
Summation: Big freakin’ robots! Whee!