I've been working on OpenMercs, an independent recreation of the MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries Titanium engine, written in Rust. Earlier today I decided to pull the trigger on launching the website and releasing a gameplay video, and wanted to share them with people who know the original games well.
The aim is to bring Mercenaries back on modern hardware using the original game's data, including its missions, models, textures and animations.
The current development build includes:
• Missions, combat, AI and objectives.
• Contracts, economy, salvage and repairs.
• Personnel management, saves and the MechLab.
• Keyboard, mouse and gamepad controls.
There are Classic and Enhanced configurations. Classic provides a reference for the original behaviour, while Enhanced gives me room to explore updated rendering, environments and other modern enhancements. More recent work includes terrain improvements and experimental seated VR through OpenXR, which are still undergoing integration and refinement.
Website, development screenshots and progress:
https://openmercs.com
Gameplay video:
https://youtu.be/aYD3YKyvMkc
It's still in development, so there isn't a public download or release date yet. The repository is currently private, with a public repository planned for the initial release. The intended release will require data from your own legitimate copy of Mercenaries Titanium; it won't include the original game's content. Multiplayer and campaign co-op are future plans.
In particular, I'd appreciate feedback from other people familiar with the original game. If you spot behaviour in the video that differs from the original, or know of useful documentation on its file formats, mission logic or engine quirks, I'd love to hear about it.
There's a lot of accumulated knowledge in this community, and I'd be glad to compare notes with anyone who's worked on MW2 tools, patches or reverse engineering.
Thanks for taking a look!
-Alopex