MechWarrior is one of the greatest video game franchises ever and if you missed out on it, you missed out big time. The original MechWarrior came out in 1989 but its sequel, MechWarrior 2 is what really launched the series, offering a highly detailed and varied 3D combat sim with mechs.

MechWarrior 2 helped launched a few more sequels and expansions, even a pair of top-down strategy games (Mech Commander), but the core series ended in 2002 after a few MechWarrior 4 expansions. Piranha Games is working on bringing it back and after a year and a half of silence, they're finally ready to show something...

That something is just a piece of art that's being revealed piece by piece over the Inner Sphere News Twitter account (@InnerSphereNews). The art itself is nothing spectacular, but the idea and reaffirmation that a new MechWarrior is on its way and still in development is the special news.

After seizing work on the mainstay franchise in 2002, Microsoft attempted to bring the series and Battletech universe to the original Xbox with MechAssault and its sequel but they were dumbed down, arcade third-person shooters, that didn't serve the franchise any justice. In 2009, when the MechWarrior reboot was announced, it came with a gameplay trailer that had fans excited and us at Game Rant excited and ready to (mech) suit up.

Here are the pieces thus far, with more segments going up every few hours:

The game is not MechWarrior 5 and instead takes place in the year 3015, before any of the previous games in the series. For fans who know the lore of the franchise, the new MechWarrior takes place at the end of the Third Succession War on the planet Deshler.

The story of the new MechWarrior follows Adrian Khol from the family who runs Deshler, of House Davion. He's a dick who doesn't take anything seriously until his family is annihilated. That leads him to take to Mech piloting for real as he avenges his family's death against the rebels.

The game is built using the Unreal 3 engine we've seen nothing in-game since early 2009. It's tentatively planned for release on PC and Xbox 360 and we will keep you updated.

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Source: Piranha Games (via Eurogamer)