openmercs.com is live. OpenMercs now has a dedicated home where I can show the engine in motion, share development progress and bring people along as the project grows.
This is a significant milestone for a project that reaches well beyond the animated Timber Wolf here on Alopex. The new site brings together a gameplay demo, captures from the development build and an overview of what works today and what comes next.
Bringing Mercenaries back
OpenMercs is an independent recreation of the MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries Titanium engine, written in Rust with wgpu rendering. The work spans the cockpit and the company behind it: missions, weapons, heat, damage, AI and objectives, alongside contracts, salvage, repairs, personnel and the MechLab.
Preservation is at the centre of it. The original game's data supplies the worlds and machines; the new engine gives those systems a home on modern hardware. Classic and Enhanced configurations provide room to study the original behaviour and explore new presentation.
A closer look at development
The website has a gameplay video and a gallery covering cockpits, company management and environments. Its development overview separates features in the current build from work undergoing integration review and longer-term plans.
Recent work includes GPU world rendering, terrain detail and experimental seated VR through OpenXR. Multiplayer and campaign co-op are further down the road.
Follow the next chapter
The engine is still in development. There is no public download or announced release date yet, and a public repository is planned for the initial release. Playing will require game data from your own legitimate copy of MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries Titanium.
For now, visit OpenMercs, watch the demo and explore the progress so far. The site also links to the community if you want to follow along. I'm glad this work finally has a place of its own.