'MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries' to Launch in December 2018 With Co-op Multiplayer and Mod Support
"MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries" is coming in December 2018, as Piranha Games announced during the MechCon 2017 in Vancouver.
The game will also be launching with the first career mode campaign in a long while, as it's been 15 years since the series had a single player storyline before "MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries," as WCCF Tech points out. What's more is that players also have the option of bringing along a few friends to finish a chapter co-op style.
"The game's newly-announced co-op functionality will enable players to host up to three friends inside their campaign universe, running missions together as a coordinated lance under the banner of the host's mercenary unit," Piranha Games noted in their press release.
"MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries" was actually announced as early as last year's MechCon event as a follow-up to "MechWarrior Online," according to Polygon. With Piranha Games as the same developer, the studio has been a "MechWarrior" series establishment since 2011.
That doesn't mean that the studio is content to make the same game for the newer generation of PCs, though. Aside from the new campaign mode and four-player co-op features, Piranha Games is also letting players go all out with their customization via full mod support.
It's not just the mechs that will support mods too, as players can "customize their own missions, contracts, planetary systems, biomes, and much more, via powerful toolsets and Steam Workshop integration" by next year.
The campaign starts a bit forward from the usual timeline, beginning in the year 3015 and spanning 35 years of interplanetary conflict. Players will start as a new MechWarrior mercenary, eventually working their way up over the course of their piloting career and leader of their own mercenary squad.
Players will eventually play an important role in the Third Succession War, a centuries-old affair that has plunged the colonized space around Earth into conflict.
The video below features "MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries" and Piranha Games showing off a few of the new features coming to the next "MechWarrior" series installment in December 2018.