Wars in the Inner Sphere:

BattleTech Freeware and Shareware Games

Below you will find homepages for information and downloads of several BattleTech computer games written by and for fans, all very different from what you can find in stores.

BattleTech: Mercenaries (official site): Jason Ozubko has done an incredible job blending the best elements of Crescent Hawk's Inception, MechWarrior I, and, mainly, Crescent Hawk's Revenge. When he's done (though it's playable now in Alpha form), this will be the game Activision, Infocom, and FASA will kick themselves for not writing and releasing first.

MechWar v1 (unofficial site by Nic Jansma): Klaus Breuer was for many years the only hope of a BattleTech turn-based hex-map game ever appearing. MechWar v1.1 was an excellent if primitive-appearing game that accurately simulated all of the 3025-3050 era BT board game and its exact rules, unlike the beautiful but almost non-BT MechCommander or the wonderful but restrictive and real-time Crescent Hawk's Revenge. Unfortunately, Klaus abandoned the project after writing the bulk of MechWar v1.2, which brings us to the next topic...

MechWar v2 (official site): Jerry Wong and Reeves lead the team writing the successor to Klaus' work. They have a working game engine and sprites and continually update this work in progress. It will be a godsend to many BT-loving but isolated players who find it difficult to cobble together a gaming group, and to those who enjoy going head-to-head with all the AI a Pentium III can muster. Perhaps this will fix FASA's oversight in never realasing such a turn- and hex-based BT computer game.

MechWar 3D (official site): Timothy Mead leads a design team writing a MechWar-like sim that aims to replicate exactly the turn-based hex-grid combat system of the BT tabletop miniatures game. Unlike MechWar v1, this is being coded in OpenGL, which means it'll be eye-candy enough to rival MechCommander without MC's bizarre rules alterations or real-time play.

Megatron VGA (unofficial site; NOTE: this site is unrelated to Wars in the Inner Sphere.): MegaTron has a bizarre history and a look immediately familiar to BattleTech and MechWarrior fans. In 1991, John Stanely released this game, and it wasn't a bad effort. Half-decent graphics, good sound, a useful AI, and workable gameplay ("crash-proof", some even called it) added much to an already good concept: modem-to-modem Giant Robot combat, long before the days of NetMech. Unfortunately, Stanely was disappointingly unoriginal, and stole BattleTech concepts and images from FASA while trying to make money off this blatant copyright infringement. He even called the two robots MadCat and Vulture, referred to them as BattleMechs and Omnis, and set the game in 3015. It's unclear whether there was a genuine lawsuit by FASA or the threat of one (I've asked, but nobody at FASA today remembers what happened back in 1991), but in 1993 Stanely released a new version with a few improvements. The two units are called Bear and Snake, and are Assault Robots, not BattleMechs. Judge for yourself.

Your comments, corrections, and additions are always greatly appreciated! Email Matt with your thoughts.

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