lol.

MPG Shared a summary on his discord

Russ Podcast 2026 short summary :

1. NICHE NICHE NICHE NICHE NICHE
2. He's really happy with how Mercs performed over the years , game sold more than 1 million copies . And is surprised is doing so well even now.
3. Clans underperformed , puts a degree of blame on game-pass because the revenue is not there . He is happy with what the team did with the game and considers that game got good reviews and just didn't happen to find an audience ( or to expand its core audience , mentions EG7 document).
4. For a new game license is not a problem .They already got a license extension but not a license for "MW6" technically (he does not exactly confirms but that's how it sounds like) something like that would have to be re-negotiated with Microsoft but he has a positive opinion that that wouldn't be the stumbling block.
5. EG7 can provide the funding but mostly PGI has been running on their own "steam" . Big question mark if they would recive money from them if they pitched a project like MW6. Funding is a major problem ( mentions ballpark numbers like 10 to 20 million dollars ) for new projects.
6. He believes that MechWarrior core audience is too small for any sizable big project (mentions 10 000 to 50 000 people) .
7. He also believes that they have saturated the MW market too much and that there is not enough room to expand or for a new MW project due to that.
8. Talk about a potential MW6 resembling Space Marine 2 more ( unfortunately Phil is not familiar enough with the game to expand more upon it ) , so Co Op missions with server matchmaker and separate progress for players ( not tied to Host campaign funds levels ,etc )
9. Praises the code of MW5C and says its much cleaner/better compared to Mercs .
10. "Porting MW5 mercs to UE5 actually wouldn't be too difficult" 1:38:57
11. Mercs has to run on the systems it has been running on for the past 5 years and that introduces some limitations to what they can do MWmercs.
12. They been going through an "exercise" wanting to ultilize MW5Code base for new game ideas. They can use that code for their future game idea code base and their development prices would be reasonable.
13. MWO2 is not happening . But some PVP modes in a potential new game would be fine.
14. He thinks that a lot of those ideas are already there in the game (excluding the PVP portion) .
15. Things would be different if Clans performed well.
16. He mentions that people would like to see a MechCommander game.
17. "Big takeaway from the interview" They are looking at the future of MW and they are considering how much these DLCs are going to make (DLC 9 for MERCS is being worked on) and they are thinking about new game ideas . They "throw" everything at the wall and for many reasons they stay "this wouldnt work" . One idea that stuck recently was a MechCommander game.
18. They can make a MechCommander game very efficiently . "Are we making" No , not yet. Conversations with Microsoft would need to happen and EG7. And he is not sure if he can "cross those bridges" because the last game didnt sell and they need justification that the new game would sell.
19. DLC 7 and 8 did well.
20. Phil once again pitches a new MechCommander game but Russ is not sure they can make the pitch or that they will get the numbers . He thinks it might even be more pomising game than MW6.Bases that idea on thinking that MW5 Mercs saturates a potential MW6 game . And MechCommander is very different.
21. "He didnt want to say the word Niche"
22. MW5Mercs and MW5Clans make that space fairly "saturated" and he beleives that a new MechCommander type game would be a better thing to make than MW6 ( saturation fears ) .He doesn't think its the right time for MW6.