Hey everyone, Mitch here.

I’m happy to tell you that our Kickstarter Backer Beta is on track for release on June 1st. The game’s looking good, playing well, and the team is firing on all cylinders but we need to take some more time to further test and bugfix our multiplayer code before confidently releasing the beta into your hands - that way, we can minimize networking issues and everyone can have a good time on day one.

Now we know folks are itching to see the game in action, so our Game Director Mike McCain and I recorded a friendly multiplayer match to give you a peek at what to expect in the Beta. Full disclosure here - Mike is one of the better players in the studio and I… am not. Nevertheless, I think I put up a pretty good fight as you’ll see in the video. Hope you like it!

For those of you interested in even more detail than Mike and I provided onscreen, Designer Ryan (RedMenace on the forums) wrote a post annotating our gameplay. Check it out here.

New Partnership

Right now, somewhere in Sweden, BattleTech & MechWarrior creator Jordan Weisman is announcing a partnership between Harebrained Schemes and Paradox Interactive to publish BATTLETECH on PC. As our Backers, we feel it’s important that you get this information straight from us before it hits the press, so here’s the deal in a nutshell: Paradox will provide marketing support, localization services, and funds for additional testing in exchange for a cut of the game’s sales. This allows us to focus all our efforts on making a great game while maintaining complete creative control.

I’m really excited that HBS will have the chance to work with Paradox as they are the clear category leader for PC strategy games. We respect the quality and depth of their games and they have lots of players and fans in our studio. Equally important to us is the way that Paradox respects and engages with their community, values we share.

(Plus, they’re huge fans of our work on the Shadowrun Returns series and are really excited about our game - good qualities in a publisher, right?)

So why is this a good thing?

• Because with Paradox’s additional test funding, we’ll have more professional testers banging on the game earlier so we ship the highest quality game we can.
• Because with their help, we can also deliver higher quality localized versions of the game to our overseas players and spend far less time managing the process.
• Because we won’t need to divide our attention away from making the game in order to sell the game. We’re not marketers - we’re game developers, and we want our focus to be firmly on delivering the best BATTLETECH experience we can.
• Because we all love BattleTech and the more attention that Paradox can bring to the game, the better its chances for success in an incredibly crowded and competitive marketplace. As I’m often quoted, “In success, all things are possible.” Paradox’s marketing support will hopefully result in increased sales of the game and allow for years of BATTLETECH expansions and sequels for all of us to enjoy.

We’re happy to be working with a publisher who knows how to make great strategy games, loves BattleTech, and respects BattleTech fans. Nothing has changed, except that our chances for success are now even higher.
​