Editing BattleTech (section)

==Current State==
[[File:Never give up.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Little Urbie, the greatest of us all.]]
As of early 2022, BattleTech is in the best state it's been in a long time. After sitting on the property for close to a decade without doing anything, Catalyst has used Kickstarter to fund a series of plastic 'Mech sculpts. Lots of this was enabled by finally resolving the legal dispute with Harmony Gold on the Unseen, but the end result is that, for the first time ever, a wide range of high quality plastic 'Mech miniatures are legitimately available. There's a "dip your toe" style starter kit with the Beginner Box, the true starter kit in BattleTech: A Game of Armored Combat, and another for the clans with Clan Invasion. Beyond those, there's a total of twenty different "Force Packs" available, each having a randomized set of 4-6 'Mechs centered on a theme of some sort. Since you only need about one Force Pack's worth of 'Mechs to play at all, ease of starting the game is definitely one of BattleTech's major virtues now.

However, the year 2022 has seen some [[Skub|controversies]]. Some are mundane such as new novels, rule books, and promised miniatures being delayed repeatedly (it didn’t help that Catalyst Games Labs is mainly a publishing company that needs to outsource miniature manufacturing to barely keep up with demand). Others are more [[Derp|awkward]] such as CGL’s game developers being caught up with picking sides between [[SJW|angry activist fans and normies]] on one hand and [[/pol/|decades-old IP developers with alternate takes on history]] on the other. Another includes [[That guy|cracking down]] on forums and groups seeking to raise money under the BattleTech label on Patreon. That, and deciding to roll up the [[Nazi|Rommel tank]] into the related [[What|Patton tank]] before TPTB locked up the forum comments on the BG BattleTech website has left fans with uncomfortable mixed opinions. For all people’s [[Meme|meming]] of jumping ship to BattleTech from 40k over GW’s antics, the grass now seems to be just as patchy on the other side of the fence.

===MechWarrior Online===
[http://mwomercs.com/ MechWarrior Online] has, as of this writing, been running for a decade and is still receiving new content. A competitive sim-shooter, MechWarrior Online has probably been a commercial success and helped get at least some people into the hobby, but its main virtue was as a source of redesigned 'Mechs. 3D prints of models from MWO are easily found on Etsy, providing modern looks for 'Mechs that CGL hasn't gotten around to resculpting yet.

===BattleTech 2018===
Harebrained Schemes announced their return to Kickstarter in fall 2015 in order to fund [http://battletechgame.com/ BattleTech], a turn based tactics game featuring RPG mechanics for 'Mechs and MechWarriors. The final result was a very respectable strategy game - you play as a mercenary company commander in the year 3025, starting with a patchy collection of low grade 'Mechs and keeping your aging DropShip from falling apart around you. Gameplay is fairly close to the tabletop but not an exact recreation. The campaign follows a power struggle for control of the Aurigan Reach, a region of mostly unimportant space at the rimward end of the map, between the Magistracy of Canopus and the Taurian Concordat. The game was followed up by three DLCs - Flashpoint, which added a series of mini-campaigns of 2-3 missions each, most of them tying into BattleTech canon, Urban Warfare, which naturally added urban environments, and Heavy Metal, which added more 'Mechs and a series of flashpoint campaigns surrounding the crash-site of a lost Star League era JumpShip with [[Clan Wolverine|obscured origins]]. Overall, BattleTech 2018 is probably the standout BattleTech game of the 2010s and a great strategy game in its own right. Even cooler, the events, planets, characters, etc. of the game (though not the game itself exactly) were canonized by Catalyst Games Lab in a tabletop rulebook/sourcebook, called ''House Arano (The Aurigan Coalition)'', which was written by HBS's Andrew McIntosh and Kiva Maginn. 

Several fan-made mod packs (notably [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/79/ RogueTech] and [https://www.nexusmods.com/battletech/mods/452/ BattleTech Advanced 3062]) have been produced which significantly extend the life of the vanilla game. These mods introduce many new factions, dozens of new 'Mechs and tanks, hundreds of new pieces of 'Mech equipment, a far larger star-map sandbox to play in, and far more depth to the 'Mech customization system as well as many quality of life changes. RogueTech in particular attempts to bring the game more in line with the tabletop experience and offers a much higher degree of gameplay complexity compared to vanilla BattleTech.

===Mercenaries 5===
Oof. Well, they gave it a shot. After over a decade since the last MechWarrior game, MechWarrior 5 was released and it was...kind of a flop. Repetitive missions and buggy AI were the primary issues, and the post-launch DLCs and bug fixes only did so much to help. As of this writing, mod support has been added, so the fans might make MW5 worth it at some point...but for now, don't bother.

As of 2022, the game is now playable with all of the DLC. Notably, MW5 has incorporated melee combat in free updates, and is adding melee weapons with the next DLC. In hindsight, it's rather jarring realizing that we have been playing giant robot games without the ability to rock 'em and sock 'em. Melee better fucking get added to MWO to balance the all-powerful lights against the heavies and assaults they so often hard-counter.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01cCX49PAbI Also has a ridiculously awesome main menu theme.]