Battletech's first expansion due November 27, two more on horizon

Mech strategy game Battletech's first expansion, Flashpoints, will be out on November 27, and it'll be followed by another expansion next summer and a third that does not yet have a release window, publisher Paradox has announced.

Flashpoints will add 30 hours worth of distinct short stories that contain crew conversations, special events, choices to make and, of course, mech battles. They're going to be difficult to complete, and some won't even let you repair your mechs between fights, but if you make it to the end of one then you're in for a rare item reward.

Some examples of these short stories, themselves called Flashpoints, include protecting civilians caught in a crossfire between political rivals and choosing between one of two political enemies to pursue and destroy. The expansion adds a new mission type, Target Acquisition, where you race to control three territories across the map, as well as three new mechs and a tropical biome.

The next expansion, called Urban Warfare, is due in the summer of next year, and you'll "fight through urban sprawl with new mechs and mechanics", Paradox says. The third expansion has not yet been named or detailed.

Flashpoints is available for pre-order at $17.99/£13.94 on Steam or the Paradox store (the price will be slightly higher after release). You can also buy a season pass for all the upcoming expansions—it's $39.99/£33.59 on Steam and the Paradox store.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.