Tinker toys: Former FASA devs reviving MechWarrior for PC, Xbox 360
And the other revival of the morning: there was a lot of speculation in late 2007 and across 2008 as to what upstart studio Smith & Tinker (winners of one of my top 10 developer logos) were up to. Studio founder Jordan Weisman was the series creator of the original MechWarrior franchise at FASA, but had since moved on to found 42 Entertainment -- creators of ARGs like Halo's now-renowned 'ilovebees' campaign.
The direction started to shape up a bit more when news hit that he'd reacquired a number of his early properties from Microsoft -- MechWarrior and Shadowrun among them -- but it wasn't until today that the studio's debut project was revealed: a current-gen reboot of MechWarrior, as seen in actually kind of unexpectedly wicked action above.
There's currently no set publisher or release date, but Weisman gave IGN a number of good details as to what to expect from the game in an exhaustive interview, of note particularly for their ideas on a semi-persistent, Call of Duty 4-esque experience-based mode for its multiplayer.




BlackTiger
#1 – 12:38 PM July 9, 2009
Be still, my beating heart.
Sounds like they're finally giving the franchise to someone who cares about their source material again.
After the departure from the original material in Mechwarrior 4 and Mechassault titles, it'll be great to have a game that returns to real Battletech.
OneofBrunenG
#2 – 9:39 AM July 10, 2009
Great news! Great memories! MechWarrior 1, 2, Mercenary, where little gems. In the following episodes, Microsoft killed all that made those games awesome simulations. Hope at last... Gi'me a pair of PPC and a bunch of jumpjets!
JoshuaTerrell
#3 – 10:40 AM July 10, 2009
WOOHOO.
That is all. I'm excited.
JayeRandom
#4 – 1:02 PM July 10, 2009
The bit at 1:42 where the muzzle of the PPC glows red hot after firing is a nice touch. I'm looking forward to this!
SC_Wolf
#5 – 9:33 AM July 11, 2009
Awesome. Now they just need to atone for what Microsoft did to Shadowrun.