‘MechWarrior 5’ Release Date, News, & Update: Piranha Games Unveils ‘Mercenaries’ Trailer; Series Heads Back To Its Standalone Single-Player Roots [WATCH]

By Tony Park - 06 Dec '16 09:30AM

The fifth edition of the "MechWarrior" series of video games has been revealed by Piranha Games at MechCon 2016 in Vancouver. The "MechWarrior: Mercenaries" is still under development and will be a standalone single-player game separate from "MechWarrior Online," which was launched after "MechWarrior 4."

Piranha Games president Russ Bullock unveiled the first seven minutes of "MechWarrior 5," which is being developed after 15 years. The developer is using Unreal Engine 4 to design the video game, which will be released in 2018.

"MechWarrior 5:Mercenaries" is under the same team who made and is currently supporting "MechWarrior Online." According to Bullock, many features of "MechWarrior 5" are still being pieced together. "One thing we've learned over is just to be cautious with expectations with our playerbase," he told PC Gamer.

For the uninitiated, the first "MechWarrior" video game was released in 1989. Its setting is the fictional universe Battletech, where players use Battlemechs to engage infantry, tanks and other Battlemechs. After the fourth installment of the game, its creators initially hinted that the franchise would get a reboot for the PC and the Xbox 360 consoles but the plan did not materialize and the developers instead had "MechWarrior Online".

"MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries" will be set in year 3015. Players will adopt the role of a rookie "MechWarrior" pilot who will engage in tactical, first-person, PVE Mech combat. The existing "MechWarrior Online" multiplayer-focused tactical combat game will continue its ongoing live development, according to Piranha Games.

The fifth installment of "MechWarrior" will allow players to have minimum 24 mechs in combat, level generation, but no microtransactions. Bullock describes "Mercenaries" as a "you pay full price, you get the game, you're done" kind of deal". Piranha Games will self-publish the video game and will not utilize a platform like Steam's Early Access for its release.

See the video of the Pre-alpha demo footage of MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries announced during Bullock's keynote presentation at Mech_Con 2016.