Phil Spencer Wants To Revisit The MechAssault IP, Says It Was “Ahead Of Its Time”

Speaking in an interview at the Xbox Tokyo Game Show, Phil Spencer said that he would like to revisit the MechAssault/MechWarrior space, an IP he believes possesses much potential (timestamp 21:05). According to him, the franchise had many things that were ahead of its time. Due to the recent happenings, he had to clarify that this was not a leak, as they don’t have a plan of doing that.

For the uninitiated, the MechAssault series is part of the MechWarrior franchise, which takes place in the BattleTech universe. The first MechAssault was released in 2002 and was one of the first games to support Xbox Live online multiplayer. The sequel MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf was released in 2004 on Xbox. There was another game, MechAssault: Phantom War, which was released in 2006 on Nintendo DS.

I always wanted us to go back and revisit MechAssault/MechWarrior space, I think there’s a lot we can do. There’s so much about that whole franchise that, in some way, was ahead of its time, and it would be nice to get to go back and revisit. We don’t have a plan today, so it’s not a leak of anything… speaking of leaks. But that would be a nice one,” says Phil Spencer.

The Xbox CEO was asked which IP he wanted to see revived, to which he pointed out MechAssault/MechWarrior. Although they are both part of the BattleTech universe, the last MechAssault game was released in 2006, and that part of the IP has since remained idle for what could be forever. The overarching BattleTech IP is a classic one first released in 1988 with BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk’s Inception.

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Spencer believes this franchise had many things ahead of its time and would be nice to revisit. Despite his wishes, it seems as though this is not part of Xbox’s bucket list. Perhaps in the future, when the mech genre has become even more popular, Xbox will set its gaze on the old IP. And with how significantly Armored Core 6 has contributed to that, it might not be so distant.