MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries and BattleTech launching in the same year was obviously just too much mech for this world. The latter came out in April, giving us control over a bunch of planet-hopping mercs, but its first-person cousin, originally slated for December this year, is now stomp stomp stomping its way into 2019.

Piranha Games president Russ Bullock released a statement yesterday, on Twitter, announcing the delay.

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is being delayed until 2019 so we can deliver the best single-player experience to date. As everyone knows, this is the first single-player experience MechWarrior title released since 2002 and we are well aware of the responsibility and great opportunity we have in re-introducing MechWarrior to the world.

Bullock didn’t announce a specific date in 2019, instead saying that Piranha would like to wait until MechCon, which takes place on December 1, to pick a new release date.

At this time we’re only prepared to announce a slip into 2019 and would like to give ourselves until MechCon this December 1 in Vancouver to determine and announce the specific launch date in 2019 so that we can be as accurate with our estimations as possible and avoid further delays.

I never clicked with Piranha’s previous take on the universe, MechWarrior Online, but a single-player alternative is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. I was still a horrible teen when the last one came out.

Good thing I’ll probably still be slowly working my way through BattleTech well into 2019.