Recently I had the chance to speak with Alex Garden of Piranha Games Inc. about the upcoming MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, Please have a read below.
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JB: This is the first standalone MechWarrior game in 15 years. How did it feel to work on this title, knowing the long road it has been to get here?
AG: Surreal. My first exposure to the franchise was over 20 years ago, with MechWarrior 2 on PC. For a good while that was pretty much the only game I played (over and over, even). I originally joined Piranha as Technical Support for MechWarrior Online back in 2014; even then I felt really privileged to be working in a franchise I’d spent so much time with in the mid-90s. After a few years of pretty intense commitment to MWO I was brought over from a Production role on that title to oversee Production for MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, shortly after our first reveal at Mech_Con 2016. That reveal was an emotional moment for me, even though I’d barely been involved in the project by that point.
Every day I have a quiet moment of surreal realization and personal excitement about working on this game. It’s been a long road for the franchise itself, and a long road for me. My focus, on both a personal and professional level, is to do solid justice to the potential of the franchise and to make exactly the type of fun, complex, and deep MechWarrior game I’d want to play.
JB: Has the fan feedback to MechWarrior Online influenced the development of MechWarrior 5? Perhaps inspired some changed mechanics or new innovations?
AG: While they’re very different games in a lot of ways, the feedback and response to MechWarrior Online does have an impact on how we approach certain aspects of MechWarrior 5. I feel we’ve already nailed a great portion of the various ‘Mech combat and piloting mechanics with MechWarrior Online, and we’re drawing from that deep well, but we do still catch areas of refinement and improvement, either ourselves or through player feedback.
More directly though, I make a point of combing the internet whenever we release any media for MechWarrior 5. The BattleTech and MechWarrior franchises have been around for so long, and across such a diverse array of products, that there are so many people out there with unique approaches and opinions about certain mechanics or designs. It’s interesting to see what individual people value from the franchise, and how we can try to hit as many of those notes as possible.
JB: Piranha Games previously worked very hard to develop MechWarrior Online, which has had some unique ideas introduced. How much do you plan to carry over into the new single player game?
AG: On the core gameplay side, as much as we can. The foundation of ‘Mech combat and piloting in MWO is extremely solid, and we’re carrying on everything that we know already works. Outside the core mechanics of combat and some of the customization the similarities begin to diverge, though. MechWarrior 5 has a completely distinct approach to everything from the campaign, the role of the Inner Sphere and its various Factions, the timeline, the technology….I could go on and on.
JB: As this is the fifth MechWarrior game, and with a 15 year gap since the last mainline entry, how do you plan to make MechWarrior 5 new player friendly without alienating long time players?
AG: We’ve put a lot of thought into that. A lot has changed in game design methodologies over the past 15 years, including the approach to tutorialization, how information is conveyed to the player, etc. For a time I think a lot of games went through a period of excessive hand-holding; valid concerns about ensuring the player knew what they were supposed to do and when started leading to this takeaway for a lot of players that games either weren’t respecting their intelligence or weren’t utilizing more interesting and immersive ways of conveying key information.
I’m not saying we’ve solved this problem, because it’s an amazingly complicated task trying to account for all the various ways people approach a game when they first load it up. MechWarrior as a whole also comes at this problem from a unique position due to its inherent complexity and the depth of its mechanics. Owing to its tabletop roots, it’s as deep as you want to go.
Our goal is to strike a balance between quick, surface-level understanding, both from a gameplay perspective and a lore perspective, while also making available the deeper complexities and nuances that veteran players will want and expect.
In the end though, really, this is a game about huge fucking war machines destroying each other on cosmic battlefields a thousand years in the future. When something is as fundamentally cool as that, it doesn’t take much of an existing familiarity to get on board with it.
JB: The game is set to use an advancing timeline and so I am curious if other parts of the BattleTech series will be touched upon using this, including other expanded universe references.
AG: T he advancing timeline and relative freedom of travel we’re affording the player in MechWarrior 5 are really interesting mechanics as a player, but they also lead to a number of very complex (and fun!) design problems to solve, particularly when it comes to hitting story notes across the Inner Sphere along the way. There is such as wealth of existing lore to draw from that it can seem overwhelming, but we think we’ve come up with a system that will ensure the player is never wanting for interesting events and battles, regardless of where they are in the vastness of the Inner Sphere.
JB: Related to the above, will any recent developments in the BattleTech franchise get referenced in the game? i.e. new updates, storyline changes and so on.
AG: Our timeline is relatively focused, in that it runs very clearly from 3015 up to 3050 and only within the Inner Sphere itself. If a recent development fits into the timeline and territories, if it can be adapted easily into our approach toward notable events in the Inner Sphere, or otherwise fits into the player-driven narrative approach, chances are we’re looking at it.
JB: This will not be the only game based on BattleTech to be released soon, as a turn based Tactics game using that same now will be released later this year as well. Has there been any talk with the developers of that game? Sharing of ideas, or perhaps setting of boundaries?
AG: Russ Bullock and Bryan Ekman, the two studio heads at Piranha, have known and worked with Jordan Weisman for a number of years. As the creator of BattleTech going back to the FASA days, the moment we knew we were going to be creating a MechWarrior game we started a dialogue with him. He’s been really supportive since day one, and we’ve worked well alongside each other during the development of our titles. We provided HBS with all of our ‘Mech models for use in BattleTech, which is an honor for us and a huge time and resource savings for them.
Jordan and the HBS team have also joined us for both Mech_Cons so far. On both occasions the fans that came to Mech_Con got to play the latest builds of BattleTech and go hands-on with it, so as far as collaboration I think the teams have worked really well together in supporting each other’s games.
On a personal I’m really stoked to play BattleTech. Initially I was worried about idea overlap, and wanting to work in a bit of an isolated chamber of design, but in reality what I think is awesome is that despite the base similarities inherent with the franchise our games are very different in so many fundamental and important ways. It makes me excited on behalf of all the MechWarrior and BattleTech fans out there; it’s crazy that we’re finally getting these fully-fledged, single-player MechWarrior and BattleTech games. We hope this is the start of a new golden age.
JB: What are some goals for this entry? Obviously you want to have a successful game and grow the fanbase, but is there anything else you hope to accomplish with MechWarrior 5?
AG: MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is the single-player MechWarrior game we’ve all wanted to make for a very long time. For a little while we played around with the concept of a campaign element for MechWarrior Online, but ultimately we knew MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries had to be its own thing. It deserved it. What it comes down to for us are concepts like replayability, freedom, flexibility, and the value of player-driven narratives. The Mercenaries approach empowers that more than anything.
We also knew there was a big desire for that kind of approach in the fanbase. When you consider what fans over the decades have really loved about the series, the games they come back to when they talk about their favorite memories of the MechWarrior franchise, it often comes down to MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries and MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries.
Since the last mainline MechWarrior title there have also been a string of mech or robot-related games and media along the way, a lot of which have been rad in their own right. That said, MechWarrior is one of the originals. It’s time for people to be reminded why it has endured for so long.
JB: MechWarrior 5 is planned to have a beefy modding system. What is it about fan modding that is attractive to developers? Where do you think there must be limits and where do you feel there must be encouragement?
AG: For me personally, the attraction to modding as a developer is intrinsically linked to my attraction to modding as a player. As a developer I know we can’t do everything under the sun; we can (and should) only take certain systems so far, both to keep development time under control and to work toward building something with a vision that’s attractive to a wide range of people. Modding can provide a game with a great deal of additional longevity because it empowers creativity and freedom in its players, which is always a good thing. As both a player and a developer, that’s valuable to me.
MechWarrior is also amazingly well suited to mod support. The world is so deep, the systems so complex, being able to provide tools to the community for unlocking even more of its potential is exciting.
That said, there always need to be limits, purely from a technical, development-focused standpoint. A lot of the core systems are deeply embedded in code and are not easily exposed to ‘clean’ modding. We need to ensure the game isn’t going to fall apart at the drop of a hat because we unnecessarily exposed a vital piece of its skeleton. The goal is to provide as much room for creativity and expansion for the players as possible, while ensuring the core pillars of the game – and its stability – remain intact.
JB: Do you have any plans for modding competitions with the game?
AG: We actually hadn’t considered that until now! We’re planning to approach members of the existing MechWarrior Online community who we know have a mind toward modding, but we hadn’t considered running a competition or ‘best-of’ program of any kind. I’ll give that some thought.
JB: Do you have anything you would like to say to the readers of Real Otaku Gamer?
AG: Thanks for checking this out! We hope that even if you’ve never played a MechWarrior game before that what you’ve seen of MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries so far has piqued your interest. We’re looking forward to blowing your minds as we approach release….
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You can see a trailer for the game below
You can follow the official twitter of the game at @MW5Mercs and Piranha Games at @PiranhaGames