Bjorn Le
Hobocop
Steam Page
I'm going to assume most people on these boards aren't really familiar with the BattleTech franchise. It's a military-science fiction franchise revolving around mecha ("BattleMechs"), and it was created in the mid-1980s, starting with a tabletop game and expanding into PC games (The MechWarrior, MechCommander, MechAssault and MechWarrior Online titles) and hundreds of books. In the last 15 years, there hasn't been much with the exception of MechWarrior Online (MWO). It's an interesting blend of the Japanese mecha genre and western military sci-fi.
On April 24th, BattleTech comes out. It's developed by an indie developer, Harebrained Schemes, which is actually run by the founder of BattleTech Jordan Weisman, who also created the ShadowRun and Crimson Skies franchise. Harebrained released ShadowRun Returns a few years ago, which got solid reviews and solid over a one million copies. It was also a turn-base tactics game, but I feel like the XCOM comparison will be more relatable to most. It's published (marketed and distributed) by Paradox.
Like XCOM, BattleTech is a turn-based tactics game where in the campaign you undertake missions, building up your base and your forces in the meantime. In BattleTech you play as a customizable mercenary company, taking missions to gain salvage (weapons and new mechs) and money . Just like the first XCOM, maps are build on handmade tiles, with missions being randomly generated from a sizable number of options. You control up to four Mechs in combat, but you can face anywhere from 0 on a given mission (essentially only encountering vehicles or turrets), to upwards of 12+ including vehicles and fortifications on more difficult missions. A difference from XCOM is the difficult settings. There isn't any in BattleTech, and instead difficult is based on a per-mission basis. Mission difficulty is based on "skulls", going up in increments of 0.5. A 0.5 skull mission might see 3-4 vehicles and a couple weak mechs, while a 5 skull mission might contain 12+. So easy missions would be akin to lower levels of XCOM difficult, while very hard missions would be akin to XCOMs most difficult setting.
I'm really excited for it, because I've been a longtime fan of BattleTech, and I'm also a fan of turn-based tactics games like XCOM. It's looking really good so far, and the pre-release reception has been very strong.