A big old batch of frankly glorious new screenshots have been released for the upcoming MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. Developed by Piranha Games, MechWarrior 5 heralds the return of what was once a giant in the PC gaming scene. Many mech games have tried and failed, but few can hold a candle to the high points of the MechWarrior series.

After a dalliance with multiplayer, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries gets back to the series' routes with a promised BattleTech-themed single-player campaign set across the far-flung reaches of space. The year is 3015, and the five Successor States are embroiled in the Third Succession War which has been raging for 150 years. The only solution? Hopping into an 80-foot tall robot and destroying everything in sight. Lovely stuff.

It may not be the most lavishly detailed game but I suspect that won’t matter one jot to MechWarrior fans. All that’s important are there are more laser beams that Attack of the Clones and everything in sight can be blown to smithereens. On the subject of lasers, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries will be launching with DXR real-time ray-tracing support for those with GeForce RTX graphics cards. Lovely stuff, that should fantastic if they’ve got some battles at dusk or dawn.

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is currently locked onto a September 10th release on PC. It’s been delayed more times than we care to remember though so don’t hold your breath. There’s also still no Steam page for the game, which obviously raises a few questions over which storefronts it could be heading to...