Good mech games and VR go together like racing sims and wheel accessories — it just makes sense. But don’t hold your breath for VR support in MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, at least not yet.
Back in 2016, MechWarrior 5 developer Piranha Games showed interest in VR support for its combat-focused mech simulator. Back then, the studio president Russ Bullock stated that it was “designed” to support VR, and it actually held a single demo for the game’s VR support at an industry event leading up to release. A programmer even stated that “native VR support” was one of the reasons they picked Unreal Engine for the game. But now that release has come and gone on the Epic Games Store, there is no peep of VR support at all.
We reached out to the developer for comment on the topic and received the following statement from a spokesperson on behalf of Piranha Games:
“Officially, Piranha is still interested in VR as a platform, but no plans to consider implementation until next year.”
So that’s not a “no,” but it’s also not a “yes.” My reading of this means that they’d love to get it working well without sacrificing resources for the core game, but it’s not a priority and if it does happen it won’t be for a while. That’s just my assumption on things, though.
Currently the top of the pile in terms of VR-focused design for a mech combat game is Vox Machinae, which has an elaborately intricate cockpit rife with interactions using tracked motion controllers. But even simple head-tracking support to play with gamepad, keyboard and mouse, or a flight stick-style setup would be better than nothing for VR and mech fans.
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries released this week and is receiving mostly positive reviews across the board, sitting at a 75 average on Metacritic after 16 reviews, including an 81/100 from IGN.