Turn-based tactical 'Mech combat set in the classic 3025 era of the BattleTech Universe. From the creators of the Shadowrun Series!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Bonus Backer Mission Goal Hit! Backer Mission Reward This Friday! And a Peek Behind the Curtain at Our Friend From Catalyst!
about 9 years ago
– Fri, Oct 23, 2015 at 12:56:25 PM
In case you missed our last update on Saturday, the Global BattleTech Community has unlocked the Stage 3 Expanded Mercenary Campaign! Woo hoo! We’re excited that you’ll be able to play an open-ended BATTLETECH single-player campaign! Heck, we’re excited that WE’LL be able to play an open-ended BATTLETECH single-player campaign!
Backer Mission Update
The community continues to knock down those Backer Missions! You’ve earned 32 points so far, which means you’ll be able to fight the Black Widows in the Skirmish game!
Last week’s Weekly Backer Mission was #myBTart and we’ve seen some great stuff being shared around the interwebs this week. Here’s some of our favs:
We’ll have a new challenge for you on Wednesday but there are still two more points to be earned this week. So if you haven’t already shared your favorite BTart, don’t delay! The next reward is a “Cameo In-Game Appearance for Morgan Kell in the Story Campaign”.
Here are the other social media links to help us get there, too:
When the Global BattleTech Community reached 20 points in Backer Missions, you unlocked a SECOND Live Stream Twitch Q&A with Jordan, Mike, and Mitch. The guys love answering your questions about the game, talking shop, and sharing their thoughts on game development. Join us!
And remember, our previous Live Streams are on YouTube, so just in case you missed the fun, you can catch up on all the Qs and all the As.
The studio is really hoping the GBC will come through with 40 points in Backer Missions so they can witness the guys do an epic, Alcohol-Fueled Live Stream Twitch Q&A before the Kickstarter ends!
A Peek Behind the Curtain at Randall Bills
As we said on our Kickstarter page, we’re very happy to be working closely with Catalyst Game Labs, publisher of the BattleTech tabletop board games and novels, to ensure that we deliver an authentic BattleTech experience. To that end, we’d like to introduce you to Randall Bills, Our Friend at Catalyst.
The Most Serious Man in BattleTech
House or Company Affiliation: House Kurita
Callsign: Metsuke
Favorite 'Mech: BNC-3S Banshee
My name is Randall Bills and I’m the Managing Developer for Catalyst Game Labs. I’ve had the distinct pleasure to be a driving force behind BattleTech for almost twenty years, now. And I’ve enjoyed almost every minute of it, delving endlessly into the game and universe in so many ways, including the numerous adventures I’ve had with Jordan in the past.
I first met Jordan Weisman when I attended GenCon back in 1994. FASA had a huge diorama of the Marik Factory from Solaris VII and he and Sam Lewis were running a game. They had high-powered BattleMechs, while a stream of players were thrown into that grinder with much lighter ’Mechs. Flake and I not only survived for a good long time, but we managed to kill Jordan’s ’Mech! He signed that record sheet and I’ve still got that laminated trophy buried in my game collection.
Despite the hundreds of books I've worked on and all the fantastic stories told, diving into the original 3025 Succession Wars Era setting hand-in-hand with the creator of BattleTech...well, I'm just beside myself excited.
The best way to describe my job with BATTLETECH is Continuity Editor. Continuity Editor means that Harebrained Schemes passes just about everything through me to make sure we put as much BattleTech polish on it as possible.
For example, they’ll send a story document via Google Docs, where numerous HBS personnel are commenting. I’ll review for continuity, often providing two or three options of what will “fit BattleTech best,” as well as putting in my own thoughts on story development.
Even just setting up for this Kickstarter has been an amazingly creative process working closely with Jordan, Mitch and Mike. I see a lot of years of excitement ahead for all of us!
And be sure to share the link with anyone you think would benefit from this introduction to BattleTech!
Talk to you soon!
-HBS
AMA with Mike Starting NOW!
about 9 years ago
– Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 11:05:38 PM
Mike's AMA on Reddit is starting in just a few minutes - so head on over to hang out with Mike and ask your questions! Since he’s a much newer face to the BattleTech community, we’ve asked him to say a little bit more about himself here before the AMA.
A Peek Behind the Curtain with Co-Director Mike McCain
Callsign: DropShadow
House or Company Affiliation: Hansen’s Roughriders
Favorite 'Mech: Atlas
Hey, Kickstarter!
So last night I was trying to figure out what to say about myself here. (This whole writing about yourself thing is weird!) I ended up thinking, “Just how the hell did I get here, anyway? Lucky enough to be making the kind of games I wanted to make growing up?”
I met Jordan almost a decade ago now, when I was still in school at UW. I just happened to run into a friend in the hall after a class, and we started talking about what we’d be up to after graduation. (Me? No clue.) He mentioned a class he’d just finished taking where Jordan had been a guest lecturer and offered to pass my art portfolio on to him. I’m still pretty amazed that Jordan saw something in that portfolio (it’s making me cringe a bit to remember it) but he contracted me for some concept work and that was my first real “in” to the game industry. It’s pretty crazy to think if I hadn’t run into my friend in the hall that day, the arc of my career might’ve been completely different!
In the years since, I’ve worked on and contracted for a variety of game projects as an artist and graphic designer. In both areas I’m pretty much self-taught, and if there’s one core lesson about art that I’ve learned in my career so far it’s that you can never stop learning. Outside of art, I’ve always been drawn to games, particularly RPGs and immersive story/world experiences. (Here’s my Gamer Motivation Profile. Some of my favorite games of all time include Deus Ex, Mass Effect 1, XCOM:EU, Gone Home, and Planescape: Torment). I’ve always been really interested in game-making at the “big picture” level - trying to figure out how the art I was making fit into the design and experience of a game as a whole, and how I could find visual solutions to make games both look and play great.
Harebrained Schemes has been my creative home for over 4 years now. It’s really been a fantastic experience collaborating with Jordan and Mitch, and growing alongside the rest of the studio ever since our origin story working on Crimson: Steam Pirates together. I’ve had a great time making Shadowrun games - and Dragonfall will always have a special place for me as my first tour of duty as Game Director - but I’m also extremely excited to take everything that I‘ve learned over the course of Shadowrun development and apply it to a brand new project. I want BATTLETECH to be another big step in the evolution of our games here at HBS. (And, while we’re on that topic, a big thank you for your support towards making that possible!)
As you probably saw in our Kickstarter video, MechWarrior 2 and Ghost Bear’s Legacy were among the first PC games I played as a kid. The thing I remember most about those games isn’t the ‘Mechs themselves, or even the gameplay (though I’ll always have a soft spot for the Joystick-era of gaming.) It’s how real and layered and complex the *setting* felt at the time. The comm chatter during missions. The bits of lore and glimpses of the larger happenings of the universe I’d glean from mission briefings. And, of course, the cutscenes with all the detailed information about ‘Mechs and ‘Mech components exposed in the ‘Mech lab.
Unlike the other games I’d played at the time, MechWarrior 2 made me feel like I was participating in a far broader world. It wasn’t a setting that had been built around ME for the purposes of a game - it felt like a setting that would exist long before and long after, and I was just playing a part in it for a time. So that’s one of the things I’m most excited about bringing to BATTLETECH - that sense of setting and that breadth of worldbuilding. Doing everything we can across our art, design, and storytelling in the game to make this feel like a grounded, living, breathing, grimey, fallen, human world that you’re experiencing.
New Digital Add-Ons, Jordan’s Next Bonus Backer Mission, and Another Peek Behind the Curtain
about 9 years ago
– Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 01:00:36 PM
Hey everyone!
Thanks to our friends at Catalyst Game Labs, we’re adding a big ol’ pile of BattleTech tabletop game supplements as digital add-ons. Even if you don’t play the tabletop game, these PDF sourcebooks, technical read outs, field manuals, and handbooks are a great way to explore the BattleTech Universe and help fund BATTLETECH.
This Week’s Bonus Backer Mission
Last week you shared your BattleTech collections with us using the hashtag #myBTstuff, and we have to say, you have some incredibly cool stuff. It was so fun to see you all share your stuff and the stories and memories that go along with it.
We’re really excited about this next Weekly Backer Mission-- #myBTart. Art is what brings the BattleTech universe to life! So share your favorite BattleTech art with us- covers of novels, framed prints you’ve got on your walls, and especially the art you’ve made yourself. Use the hashtags #myBTart and #BATTLETECH.
To kick us off, here's some amazing papercraft by Daniel Chmielewski who shared his work during #myBTstuff. If you think that's cool, you can see more here.
For those of you who haven't checked the front page in awhile, Backers have already unlocked two Twitch Q&A sessions, a 2nd and 3rd Michael Stackpole e-novella, and the addition of the Eridani Light Horse, the Kurita Sword of Light and House Davion's Fox's Teeth as enemy units your can fight in the Stage 1 Skirmish game.
We're now heading toward the addition of the Black Widows in the Stage 1 Skirmish game. We hope to see tons of art this week so we can unlock that as well!
Mike McCain is the tall guy with the still-black beard who appeared in our Kickstarter video and live streams. Mike was Creative Director on the Shadowrun series and is driving development of BATTLETECH with Jordan.
He’ll be hanging out on Reddit this Friday, 10/16 at 10:30 AM PDT/ 5:30 PM GMT and we invite you to join him and Ask Mike Anything.
A Peek Behind the Curtain at Composer Jon Everist
Some of you have been asking out what the soundtrack is going to be like so we thought we'd let our composer, Jon Everist, answer you himself.
House or Company Affiliation: Davion
Callsign: Odin
Favorite 'Mech: BattleMaster
Hey there! I’m Jon Everist, and I served as the Composer and Audio director for Shadowrun: Hong Kong (Check out the OST at JonEverist.bandcamp.com). I also did a lot of music on Shadowrun: Dragonfall (tinyurl.com/q2mqtl8), music/sound for Golem Arcana (tinyurl.com/lfxth44) and am currently audio directing and composing for Necropolis (tinyurl.com/oz9mqcq).
I’ll be composing the score for BATTLETECH and I couldn’t be more excited about it. The MechWarrior franchise was really influential to me as a kid. What child of the 90's doesn't remember their first encounter with enormous ‘mechs in epic combat? I think this was the first universe that fueled my fascination with far-future science fiction, so I can’t wait to fill the world with an interesting and evocative score. I was also lucky enough to check out a BattleTech center when I was young, and I'm still trying to convince Jordan and Mitch to bring those back :)
Working with HBS has been a dream. It's a pleasure to work with such a collaborative and talented group of people who share a common vision. It operates like a tight knit family, which I think shows itself in the thoughtfulness of the games they create.
For the score: expect to hear BIG and bombastic orchestral music with an underpinning of deep and gritty analogue synths. All is not pretty and pristine in the BattleTech universe, and I want to reflect that in our audio. Mercenaries are used in the nobility’s plots and schemes. MechWarriors and their Mechs are dirty and in various stages of disrepair. This is a world where people make due with what they can salvage. I’ll aim to reflect this in the music by focusing on realism, on air in the room of our musicians and real electricity flowing through the tubes of the synths I use. I’ll also temper this grit with rich motives and themes that support the fantastic story, the various houses and the dangerous world they struggle to control. Just thinking about it is making my room shake!
Stay in touch with me and my progress writing the music for the game on Twitter @JonEverist
. - Jon
Funding Goal Unlocked! A Reward Level Gets a New Option! Flight Jacket Update!
about 9 years ago
– Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 05:37:51 AM
The march towards our next major objective: STAGE 3 - The Extended Mercenary Campaign, continues! Today, our valiant heroes unlocked our next Funding Goal: 3D MechWarrior Portrait Customization!
Thanks to your funding, we'll build a complete 3D portrait customization system so you can tailor the look of your MechWarriors and your own Mercenary commander.
Each new recruit you hire will have a procedurally generated name, stats, and 3d portrait - but when you customize your crew, we'll never have to "cycle" MechWarrior appearances in your game.
You’ll have access to a range of customization options you can use to create a merc crew that looks just the way you want them (you can name and model the likeness of all your mercs after your friends, for example).
New Option for the Noble House Scion Level
We’ve received feedback that some folks want to support the project and wear some cool swag, but don’t want to show allegiance to one of the Great Houses. So, we’ve added a 6th Option to the Collection of Noble House Heraldry you can choose from at the $125 Level - in addition to Davion, Kurita, Liao, Marik, or Steiner, you can now choose BATTLETECH.
Some folks have also been wondering what the sets for the other Houses look like - check out the concepts for all 5 Great House heraldry sets below.
Flight Jacket Update
We had a couple requests regarding the Flight Jacket and, after looking into it, have decided to offer a few more options than we did initially.
We will now offer the jacket in Gun-Metal Gray OR Black.
We've added additional sizes so jackets will now be available in sizes S - 5XL. A measurement chart will be available when you choose your size.
(Note: You will designate both the color you want and the size in our pledge management tool after the Kickstarter ends.)
We think the outside of the jacket is incredibly cool, but it's the inside that makes it really special! When you open the jacket, you'll find a COMSTAR "BLOOD-CHIT" declaration promising the capturer or assister of the MechWarrior wearing this jacket a reward for safe delivery to the nearest ComStar facility.
Here’s Mr. Weisman modeling the black flight jacket and a look inside at that “Blood-Chit”.
The text reads:
"This MechWarrior is a member of a Noble House or Mercenary Outfit which has paid ComStar to arrange safe passage back to their current staging area. If you have captured this MechWarrior in combat, or are attempting to assist them: please safely deliver this person to the nearest ComStar HPG facility. You will be paid a ransom in C-bills based upon their rank and/or noble title.”
What's Next?
Tomorrow, we'll transmit Jordan's next WEEKLY BONUS MISSION video update! Until then, we march for STAGE 3!
- HBS
Jordan's Next Weekly Bonus Mission!
about 9 years ago
– Mon, Oct 19, 2015 at 05:37:38 AM
Wow, the Global Battletech Community really came through in full force for our FIRST WEEKLY BONUS MISSION! The team loved seeing you tweet your favorite #BTmemory stories. Here are a few of our favorites:
What's Next?
So now, GBC, it’s time for the SECOND WEEKLY BONUS MISSION!
As Jordan said, this mission is all about Stuff. Many of us have been playing BattleTech and collecting memorabilia for decades, and our drawers, closets, and storage units are full of BattleTech Stuff! Whether it’s pins, models, patches, or "something you'd never expect", tweet us photos of your cool BattleTech gear using the hashtags #myBTstuff and #BATTLETECH.
And don't forget to tag your friends and tell them to send us pictures of their favorite Stuff too!
Right now, we’re only three points away from unlocking House Davion’s Fox’s Teeth as an enemy unit you can fight against in the skirmish game!
As a reminder, the social media links to LIKE and SHARE towards completing your Backer Missions are below.
