Celebrating the classics
MetalTech: Earthsiege , October 1994, by Dynamix.
Short history:
Dynamix made Mechwarrior 1 in 1989. As they started working on Mechwarrior 2, Activision pulled the rights. Activision's Mechwarrior 2 would of course go on to be a legendary game in its own right.
Dynamix wanted to finish their mech game, and so Earthsiege was born, forging a separate lineage of mech games, distinct from Mechwarrior.
Earthsiege 1 was and still is, a feature-rich mech experience. Semi-procedural mission creation, a salvage/logistics metagame, weather factors, deep mech-HUDs with tons of displays, and even squadmate control!
Earthsiege built on the foundations of the best flight sims of the late-80's and early 90's (some of which were made by Dynamix themselves) and applied the mechanics to a mech game.
I played hours of its sequel, Earthsiege 2 in my youth right alongside Mechwarrior 2. The two games, and franchises, created my love of mech games. Eventually, I would take these games as direct inspiration when I set down to make my own mech game. The title itself, if one hasn't picked up on it, is partly a fun reference to both franchises; Battle tech, Metal tech.
So today we celebrate one of the forgotten greats. Earthsiege 1 runs very well on DOSbox but can be a bit daunting to get into (honestly, what mech game from the 90s wouldn't be?).
Disclaimer: I am not in any way affiliated with, or in partnership with HiRez or its subsidiary studios. The above post was made independently of any concurrent promotions. Promotion is not, and should not, be taken as anything more than applicable to battleMETAL, and battleMETAL only.