We haven’t had a good Mechwarrior game in a very long while. The current form of the much beloved 90s game franchise where you take control of a giant mech and shoot at other mechs in the sci-fi universe of Battle Tech, exists only in a multiplayer online only, free-to-play format.  Mechwarrior online is that Mechwarror game that people love to hate, its full of micro transactions, caters heavily to harder core players, and has a small but dedicated community of players who keep it running. So its a surprise when this week the games developer Piranha Games have announced that the game will be released on steam in December. Here’s Piranha Games announcing the move on its site, while noting that there’s a a contest going on in Vancouver to celebrate it in, which 50 people will be able to win tickets, and air fare.

Will this help or hurt a game thats heavily centered on micro-transctions? It will at the very least likley grow the player base, which is never a bad thing. For my money I prefer my mech action to be in Hawken, but as this game is much more in depth and in one of my favorite sci-fi universes of all time, I will probably at least give it a look.