Yesterday, Piranha Games fully revealed their MechWarrior game will be called “MechWarrior Online”.

MechWarrior Online will be a free to play online tactical multiplayer game and Piranha are aiming for a summer 2012 release date.

So far details on the game are sketchy, but some details have been revealed on their official site and on PC Gamer:

• MechWarrior Online (MWO) will be a first person game
• It will be set in 3049 in an offset timeline of the BattleTech Universe
• There will be no melee combat
• You will not be able to exit your mech
• Joystick support is a strong possibility according to Creative Director Bryan Ekman in an interview with PC Gamer.
• Customization and organizing into mercenary units will be a major part of the game
• Mercenary corporations will be in the game which will be like guilds. Ekman gave some details on it during the PC Gamer interview where he said “Players will be able to band together in the format of a lance, which is four, and they’ll be able to band together as a mercenary corporation for hire. That’s not unlike a guild. We have a whole editor and mercenary HQ for players to explore that allows them to customize the look and feel of their corporation, their membership, the structure of how they enter battle, the lances, their names, ranks, and all kinds of things.”
• Conquest and a variety of deathmatch modes will be available in game.
• A cash shop will be in game, but according to Ekman it will not give players an advantage in game. He told PC Gamer “Anything that would affect or give you a tactical advantage, you can’t purchase with real cash. You have to earn that by playing the game,”

For more information on MechWarrior check out the official site at http://www.mwomercs.com/

Also check out the PC Gamer interview and some of the games concept at over at http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/10/31/meet-mechwarrior-online-piranhas-free-to-play-tactical-mech-sim/