Vor geraumer Zeit schon hatte MekTek angekündigt, man wolle MechWarrior 4 samt Add-ons kostenlos veröffentlichen. Nachdem im vergangenen Sommer der neue Inhaber der Rechte an der Marke, Smith & Tinker, sein OK gab, hat jetzt auch Microsoft die letzten Hürden aus dem Weg geräumt.

Infos und Download-Links für das insgesamt 1,7 GB schwere Paket gibt es auf dieser Webseite.

Getting started is easy. Just download and install MTX, MekTek's free content delivery and updating system. Once installed, simply click the Games Available tab, select Mechwarrior4: Mercenaries and click install. The game will download and install, all within MTX, and as updates become available, MTX will help you keep your game up to date. [...]

As if that wasn't enough, the Free Release comes with many improvements over the original Mercs thanks to the Mektek Mekpaks, like added security and a new kind of zone for multiplayer.

That brings us to what many of you have been looking forward to most of all - the new and exciting features and improvements that have been added solely for this special release.

• Clan and IS Mech Pack mechs available in campaign
• Mektek mechs and weapons added to campaigns
• Zonematch has been replaced with MekMatch in all visible text and is the one and only mech-matching service
• 5 new MekMatch servers to host and play on! You can change servers whenever you like. Each server has a dedicated community to cater to
  • League Server
  • New Players
  • Australia
  • Europe
  • North America
• "Connect" and "Host" default to the last server chosen