MechWarrior to stomp back into gaming in 2012, PC-exclusive

MechWarrior is coming back, arrives in 2012 and will be a PC-exclusive title.

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If you think back to 2009, you may remember a teaser trailer from Piranha Games for a new MechWarrior title. But recently, they announced MechWarrior Online, a free-to-play multiplayer mech simulator set in the Battletech universe.

In a dev blog, Creative Director of Piranha, Bryan Ekman, explained how the company's attempts to secure a publishing deal redefined and ultimately derailed the MechWarrior project they had planned. The original game was pitched as an Xbox 360/PC release, but "the scope and budget required to develop a console reboot needed the support of a PS3 SKU and we just couldn't convince publishers to take risk."

MechWarrior to stomp back into gaming in 2012, PC-exclusive | TweakTown.com

Now we have MechWarrior as a PC-exclusive, it will feature a first-person cockpit view, and Ekman hopes to include joystick support. Ekman has also bragged of urban combat zones and "information warfare" as MechWarrior Online's two big design pillars.

Fighting in (and crossing our fingers for destructible) cityscapes are set to be included, and disrupting or controlling the flow of information should encourage players to play around with a wide variety of different mechs.

There aren't many specifics of how the free-to-play plan will work, but Ekman told PC Gamer, "Anything that would affect or give you a tactical advantage, you can't purchase with real cash. You have to warn that by playing the game."

This is good, and bad. It means that real cash is obviously involved (or else the Piranha team don't get paid), and that people who play the game for hundreds of hours will kick your ass within seconds because of the unlocks. Then again, this is like any other leveling-up title, such as the Call of Duty or Battlefield series'.

NEWS SOURCE:anandtech.com

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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