Back in the 90's, one of my favorite PC games to play was Mechwarrior. I was hoping that it would have eventually showed up on GOG at some point, but after I found out that it is now a Microsoft owned franchise, I figured that it probably wouldn't happen any time soon.

I haven't yet had the opportunity to try all the games I have from GOG yet, however one game I have which seems 'near' to the genre is "Shogo: Mobile Division", but it's not quite the same.

Are there any other games that exist here on GOG that are close to a Mechwarrior clone? If not, are there any other games close enough outside of GOG to be considered close enough to be a clone that run on the PC?

Closest I know of is Shattered Steel

Even if Microsoft signed up with GOG, there is no guarantee that we'd get any Mechwarrior other than the fourth one, as Microsoft might not even own the first three. Even if they did, the first and second games would still be fit for unrelease thanks to the presence of mechas that aren't covered by the Battletech license.

As for your question, Terra Nova should be another game to look into.

You know, I have this in my library and from the screenshots it does look like a similar experience!

Thank you both for the quick reply, I'm going to install now, TARFU, I marked yours as the solution since you answered first. OK, that's pretty interesting. I need to learn more about the business behind the licensing and intellectual property, since it seems more involved than someone buying the rights to a "franchise".

When you say "mechas" that aren't covered by the Battletech license, what exactly does that mean? Someone else holds the license to them as well? It seems so weird that a game series could be so fragmented in the legalities of its distribution.

Thanks for the game recommendation, it looks like a candidate as well.

+1 that was very enlightening, thank you.

Outside of gog you can also have a look at Mechcommander and Battlezone. Both are free these days as far as I know, and work pretty well on a modern (win7) system.

Just to bump up an old topic but the only thing stopping the unseen mechs was Harmony Gold and they recently lost a lawsuit against PGI and Hairbrained Schemes and it was ruled that Harmony Gold do not and never have owned the rights to the mech designs shared between the mechwarrior and macross series and the other anime series that share mech designs.So Harmony Gold cannot sue over the unseen mechs.

Shattered Steel is good fun, but nothing has come close to replicating Mechwarrior's feeling of piloting giant stomping tanks except Steel Battalion. Not even MWO came close.
Shattered Steel's WASD + mouse look control scheme favored an arcade style of play vs Mechwarrior's sim like experience.

Man... Assuming they would be reasonably priced, the Mechwarrior games would be instant purchases for me. I actually had original copies of all of the Mechwarrior games, including Mercenaries and Titanium edition of MW2 and Ghost Bears Legacy, but I sold them last year. I remember wishing I had a monitor that could handle the 1024x768 resolution in MW2, even though my computer back then couldn't even run it smoothly in 640x480. Really hope they show up here eventually!

Earthsiege 2 also, that would be a nice edition here as well.

I have Mechwarrior 4 on my pc, it is a version called MekTek Mechwarrior 4. As far as I know there was an agreement between MS and MekTek to produce a free version, but that got ditched pretty fast because it was an overwhelming success.

Excerpt from a reddit thread:
"When MS licensed MW out to Smith and Tinker for MW5 (Later turning into MWO for PGI/IGP) MS decided that they did not want a free version of MW4 cutting into sales for the new project. Mektek was also working on a development deal for Heavy Gear Assault which would compete with MWO and of course the free MW4. it was basicly a business decision and I wouldn't be surprised if it brought up legal questions as well so they decided to end development on MW4 and also end their agreement with MS to give out MW4. I think the only reason MS allowed MW4 to go free like it did was because the IP had been dead for a decade."

You can still get it though, I am not sure if the files have been tampered with, so one should be carfeful.

how-to-get-and-install-the-mektek-mechwarrior-4-mercenaries/

hMekTek MW4

Very interesting information and I will definitely be looking into this. Thank you very much, especially for providing the links!

i too would just jump at the chance to instantly buy all of the mechwarrior and mechcommander games if they were to jump on GOG, also mechcommander gold works perfectly fine on windows 10 from disk without any need to patch or use 3rd party applications to get working unlike mechcommander 2.

Actually isn't any legit way to get Mektek MW4 Mercenaries. The studio that make this version have and agreement with MS, they can offer the game for free as long as they not won money not by the game not by any other mean, and because that they make a new game by crowdfunding, they cannot offer MW4 longer.

PS. The new game is also a mech piloting game, Heavy Gear Assault.