Xbox Boss Phil Spencer Would Love a MechAssault Revival, but ‘We Don’t Have a Plan Today’

ign.com:

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has revealed the one game we would love to see revived: MechAssault.

MechAssault launched for the original Xbox in November 2002, and was one of the first games to support Xbox Live online multiplayer. Day 1 Studios’ third-person action game went down well with fans, and spawned a sequel MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf, released in 2004. A Nintendo DS game, MechAssault: Phantom War, launched in 2006. Day 1 Studios is now known as Wargaming Chicago-Baltimore, and works on World of Tanks.

In 2017, Mitch Gitelman, who previously worked as the head of FASA Studio (Day 1 Studios worked with FASA on MechAssault), revealed Microsoft decided to pull the plug on the franchise after MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf didn't sell well enough. “It didn't turn into the franchise that Microsoft was looking for. That's all,” Gitelman said. "At the time there was sort of a sales bar. You don't hit that sales bar and it's like, 'Okay, that was that.' “

Now, 21 years after the first MechAssault game came out, Spencer has said he’d love to see it come back. Speaking in an IGN Japan Q&A at Tokyo Game Show 2023, Spencer namechecked the series.

“I've always wanted us to go back and revisit the Mech Assault/Mech Warrior space,” he said. “I think there's a lot we could do. There was so much about that whole franchise that in some ways I think was ahead of its time and it would be nice to get to go back and revisit. We don't have a plan today, so it's not a leak of anything - speaking of leaks - but that would be a nice one.”

Spencer's mention of leaks is a reference to last week's huge Xbox leak that revealed the company's hardware plans for a mid-gen console refresh, a next-gen Xbox for 2028, and even Bethesda's release schedule.

Meanwhile,