BattleTech's Flashpoint missions promise "choice and reward"

At Gamescom last month, we caught up with Mitch Gitelman from Hairbrained Schemes, and in a small office hidden away behind the scenes at the Cologne-based event we found out more about the content coming to mech-powered strategy game BattleTech in November.

Players will be getting both free and paid additions to the game. Flashpoint is the name of the expansion and it involves chained missions and a new approach to storytelling where choice plays a greater role. We'll also get three mechs for players to master and a new biome. Update 1.3, on the other hand, allows players to bypass the campaign and play the more mercenary career mode.

"Choice and reward, that's the big thing about Flashpoint's story," Gitelman told Gamereactor. "And those are between two and five missions long, and you never know exactly how many missions there are going to be because of the choices you make within them."

It's a different approach to storytelling compared to the base game, with the variable length of each campaign making for what sounds like a more unpredictable experience. As part of the expansion, players will have to get to grips with three new mechs. The new mechs are the Crab with its pincer-like limbs, an ominous-sounding behemoth called the Cyclops, and the returning fan-favourite Hatchetman, which will use its axe to mark the first time we're seeing melee combat in the video game half of the series.

There's also going to be a new biome for players to battle through, a tropical one to be exact. That'll mean alien spores in the atmosphere and new technical challenges in terms of a managing your mechs in the environment. There's also going to be a new encounter type called Target Acquisition, with light and medium mechs having to take a trio of capture points.

The new expansion is heading to Battletech in November. Check out the full interview below.