About the game
MetalMercs puts you in command of your own mercenary company in real-time-with-pause tactical mech combat. Take contracts across the Core, deploy your columns onto procedurally generated battlefields, and land critical hits that cripple weapons and engines. Afterwards, salvage the wrecks, repair and refit your mechs, hire and train pilots, and pick the next contract that keeps the company paid.
It's a love letter to the mech games of the late '80s and '90s, Crescent Hawk's Inception, Crescent Hawk's Revenge, the original MechWarrior, and MechCommander, rebuilt with modern gameplay, visuals, and endless procedural battlefields.
Key features
- Real-time with pause: command columns of mechs live, or pause to plan, queue waypoints and draw formation lines.
- Destroy, salvage, upgrade: crippled enemies become salvage; strip parts, refit your mechs and keep your company running.
- Procedurally generated battlefields: rivers, coastlines, cliffs and cities across dozens of biomes, with dynamic weather and time of day.
- Dynamic lighting: headlights, night vision and burning terrain; missed shots scorch the ground and can start fires.
- Pilots with personality: procedurally generated portraits, redesigned skills, and pilot chatter during quiet stretches of battle.
- Branching contracts: negotiate terms, choose routes, fall back when a branch fails, and earn bonuses for optional objectives.
- A galaxy to explore: a revamped star map of the Core with procedurally generated starports, each world with its own equipment, pilots and traits.
- Corepedia: an in-universe archive covering the history, technology and societies of the Core.
The beta demo
The free beta demo released on November 12, 2026 is a complete revamp of the long-running alpha demo. It opens with a guided tutorial mission, carries straight into a short contract with your new column, then returns you to the starport of Drake's Landing to repair and refit before one more contract. Contracts branch and salvage is procedeurally determined, so even the demo has reasons to replay.
History
Jay is a life-long fan of mech games, and began building MetalMercs more than six years ago. What started as a fan project to recreate his favorite childhood mech games evolved into a true, solo, indie game, with its own mechs, universe, and lore. The Steam page and first public demo launched in July 2024, and the alpha demo was played and updated for over two years. In November 2026 the game entered its final phase of development with an all-new beta demo: new visuals, lighting, procedurally generated battlefields, weather, streamlined contracts, salvage and refitting. The full game launches on Steam in March 2027.
Selected coverage
Trailer
Demo trailer (November 2026). Watch on YouTube.
