"Studio MekTek, in association with Smith and Tinker, INC., Virtual World Entertainment, LLC, Catalyst Game Labs, and Microsoft Games, is happy to announce the release of Mechwarrior4 Free," reads the game's website.

The Mechwarrior IP is owned by Smith and Tinker, which gave community site MekTek.net permission to release the game for free last year. Microsoft, the original publisher, gave the all-clear last week and the rest is history.

• 111 different mechs ranging from 20 to 100 tons.
• 9 Battle Armor
• 6 Infantry
• 32 Beam Weapons
• 43 Ballistic Weapons
• 44 Missile Weapons
• 7 Electronic Components
• 3 different types of armor

• 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

• New features for dedicated servers like the ability to add a fixed number of bots to a dedicated server upon launch chosen in setup! Bot Levels can also be set. Default game length has been changed to 30 minutes instead of original 10.

• Game loads much quicker and no longer requires a CD
• Original mechs, Clan and IS Mech Pack, and Mektek mechs arranged alphabetically in Mechlab list (no longer have special symbols in front of the mech name except for Battle Armors and Infantry).
• New Screenshot Folder for in-game screenshots (instead of the main Mercs installation folder where it was difficult to locate them).

• LTRI (Long Tom Range Indicator) added when a weapon with trajectory is installed on a mech! Torso pitch angle in degrees is also shown! Even height of mech has been calculated and accounted for in range.
• Mission and Computer Clock added as part of the UI. Mission Clock is a semi-transparent pie chart indicating how much time is left on a multiplayer map!
• Additional Chat state. Besides the in-game chat box's normal and large size you have the option of completely turning off chat (disappears). Pressing the "y" or "u" key (general chat and team chat) causes the chat box to reappear!