The campaign goes all the way up to 3049, just before the Clan Invasion. They are able to accept contracts from the various factions available in this time period. The game starts in 3015 during the final decade of the Third Succession War, casting the player as a rookie mercenary MechWarrior rising from the ashes of a demolished mercenary unit. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is set in the BattleTech universe. It features ray tracing powered by Nvidia RTX as well as DLSS. On May 27, 2021, it was made available on additional platforms including Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Steam and GOG, in addition to the DLC pack Heroes of the Inner Sphere.

On May 7, 2020, it was made available through Xbox Game Pass for PC. It was initially available as an Epic Games Store exclusive title, which, like other games with Epic Games Store exclusivity deals, has been met with criticism. It is the first single player MechWarrior game since 2002. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is a BattleTech mecha game developed by Piranha Games and released on December 10, 2019, on Microsoft Windows.

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