BattleTech - Heavy Metal Interview

Wccftech interviewed the developers of BattleTech about their new expansion Heavy Metal.

Was it a difficult decision to add in an Area of Effect attack into the game?

Absolutely not, no. First of all, it exists in BATTLETECH lore already, we didn’t create the Thumper Cannon. So no worries there. But also, when you think about what happens in the game, you’ve got four mechs taking on sometimes up to 12 at the same time, you can see the utility of this thing. It's not like rock, paper, scissors, dynamite or something. It helps to level the playing field but it is not a win button or anything like that. Plus it's only got two shots so we can fit it in.

Also, every game out there that’s a modernish tactical game has a hand grenade which is an AoE attack, so there’s no design risk there for me at all.

You’ve also introduced unique abilities, integrated equipment, into the new mechs, will they be coming to the old mechs as well?

Yes so all ten of the new mechs are coming with these unique bonuses, the eight in Heavy Metal and the two free ones in 1.8, they’ll all have unique pieces of equipment. But again with the modding, we figure that everyone will go back and add what they think is best for the previous mods.

This is the wrong word for it, but we hope we inspire people to do that so that every mech gets a unique battlefield role based on its lore that works for everyone. That was a big part of what it was about for us. If you read the novels it sounds really cool but mechanically it's not there, so that’s what we wanted to reinforce. 

There’s over two hundred novels, plus technical readouts and sourcebooks and that’s one of the coolest things about BATTLETECH, it's got this thirty-five-year history and this massive shared universe. Many many many people have contributed to it and this is just our contribution. And we want to pay homage to them, the people and work that came before. 

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Thanks Farflame!