Here we go again, folks. Yet another game that was originally announced to be heading to Steam, only to end up on the Epic Games Store. Announced today, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is now an Epic Games Store exclusive. Don’t kill me, I’m just the messenger.
Despite a number of people pre-ordering the game and being offered a Steam key, it turns out the game won’t be on Steam at all. The game will also see yet another delay and will now release on December 10th, 2019. It goes without saying that this is also another crowdfunded game that is now heading to the Epic Games Store. Yet another game that was funded by backers who were promised one thing and are now being told another.
The silver lining here is that refunds are being offered from the start.
It has been officially announced that Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries will now be releasing on December 10th 2019 exclusively on the Epic Games Store.
Community Pre-order pilots will be able to access the Closed Beta to access practice missions in November, prior to the game’s full launch.
Our partnership with Epic Games store allows us the opportunity to make sure MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries meets our internal goal of creating the best MechWarrior game possible.
Fans looking to obtain refunds from their pre-order of any tier are able to do so by September 1st. Pre-order refunds of any tier will be refunded in full. Additionally, those seeking refunds will be able to keep all bonus MechWarrior Online content from the Standard, Collector and Ultimate Editions of the pre-order, which amount to $100, $180, and $300 dollars worth of in-game currency and content for MechWarrior Online including all bonus items like XP, premium time, badges, decals, cockpit items and more, depending on which pre-order tier purchased.
However, refunded pre-orders will forfeit their access to the full game and be unable to participate in the upcoming closed beta for MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, now scheduled for November as well as lose the exclusive MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries DLC items.
Sure, you can request a refund, but you’ll miss out on the upcoming beta. Something that I’m sure many fans will likely not want to do. So it seems like most are going to be stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I’ve talked about the pros and cons of the Epic Games Store a number of times in the past, so I won’t get into that now. However, the number of crowdfunded games that have suddenly changed platforms (bait and switch) is getting higher and higher. The fact that is a crowdfunded game is what is going to upset people. As for the developer, I can’t really fault them. Not only is Piranha Games a small studio, but whatever amount that was offered to make this happen will likely help them in the long run. Even at the expense of some backlash, possibly blowing any trust out the window and likely will never be able to get any crowdfunding again.
If I might add, the number of games that Epic seems to be snagging due to these exclusive deals. Perhaps they could work on getting those features that they were supposedly coming to the Epic Game Store. According to their roadmap, they’ve missed scheduled updates for the second time in a row. There’s no shopping cart, and cloud saves are only available for a limited number of games.
@TimSweeneyEpic are cloud saves live on egs now? some guy spotted "enable cloud save" function in moonlighter settings pic.twitter.com/051rTNWLV8
— Shy (@ShyXLFT) July 25, 2019
Get ready to see a number of angry tweets, Reddit posts and more once this news gets seen by the Mechwarrior community. One way or another, this won’t end well.
