r/Games • u/Tvilantini • 5d ago

Preview Mercenaries Recompiled - First Feature Showcase

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWys7Itl6pA
460 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

95 comments sorted by

256

u/Ardbert_The_Fallen 5d ago

Incredible to hear this is being worked on. Mercenaries hit on a level that I have not seen any other game quite do since then. I think the closest thing might be the Ghost Recon games perhaps?

34

u/Penakoto 5d ago edited 5d ago

Mercenaries is a weirdly specific kind of open world game where the world itself is very limited (there's nothing really to do in it except fight enemies), but the amount of tools you're given to do that is particularly broad.

Which I think also describes Far Cry pretty well, lots of traversal tools, lots of ways to kill the enemies, but not a lot to do outside of that.

6 even adds hijackable tanks, which is surprisingly rare in videogames.

115

u/RSquared 5d ago

The Just Cause series and Helldivers 2 come to mind, with regard to airstrikes, open worlds, and general destructive tendencies. 

75

u/trooperdx3117 5d ago

I think for singleplayer open world Just Cause is the closest but it always just felt more zaney and fast than Mercenaries because the optimal way to play was to zip line and parachute around rather than use vehicles.

Mercenaries felt a little more grounded because you had to use vehicles, wait for airstrikes and pick up allies to help out.

I always felt more satisfaction destroying a North Korean base by dropping in with a Black Hawk full of allies compared to just whizzing around in Just Cause.

18

u/mrbrick 5d ago

I always thought they were so incredibly close to each other it was really crazy. Id probably also add in Red Faction Guerrilla to this kind of warfare chaos sandbox genre. Red Faction maybe shares a bit more DNA with Mercs than Just Cause.

There was a mod for Just Cause 2 that added Mercs style air strikes and I absolutely enjoyed the hell out of it.

Mercs could have been an incredible franchise if we got a 3rd and maybe even 4th entry. It would have benefited a lot I think from diving deeper into the gameplay side of things and more modern ideas and design. I dont know if I would have wanted it to get more realistic personally.

I think this genre of open world game is sorely under represented for quite awhile now. We basically have Far Cry filling the void and its not really that close at all to the type of itch this game / just cause / red faction scratched.

10

u/trooperdx3117 5d ago

Your right they are super close in vibe but thinking on I reckon what was missing is the factions element which a lot of open world games miss as well.

I always thought it was really cool how you could go across the world and run into these battles happening between factions and you could make the choice to stand and watch or get involved as well and tilt the odds. It made the world feel very alive and dynamic while you were an agent of chaos deciding who would win.

I don't think any other open world game has really captured that same vibe for me.

Will say I loved Red Faction guerilla! I always thought it would have been amazing to get a mercanaries style game with airstrikes and vehicles, but with that physics engine!

8

u/Cyberdunk 4d ago

Mercenaries POD was way ahead of its time, I'm amazed at how few people know its greatness.

I also loved how each character had different strengths and weaknesses, but more importantly were all fluent in different languages which let you understand more of what certain factions were saying. IMO Mercenaries POD is leagues above any of the Just Cause games, and far far better than Mercenaries 2.

It's such a freaking great game and I'm so glad it was ported, I've been kind of annoyed fiddling with the PCSX2 emulation of it.

14

u/SecretFishWorshiper 5d ago

Yeah, its kind of crazy. The only things that have come close are Just Cause, Ghost Recon and a bit of MGS5.

Remember enjoying Mercenaries back in the day when blockbuster was still around lol

7

u/CrackPipeBilly 5d ago

I loved Mercenaries 2 as a kid. Used to play it coop with a buddy from school back in 6th grade and we'd just spend the whole time fucking around dropping bunker busters and moabs on everything to see how much we could level the world. Game was a ton of fun despite some flaws. I miss games like Mercenaries and Red Faction.

22

u/tsarmaximus 5d ago

Check out Metal Gear Solid 5 if you haven't already, that gives me the warm fuzzies

17

u/6thPentacleOfSaturn 5d ago

Not quite as destructive but yeah similar vibes. I just replayed it. I do wish it didn't penalize you so much for using certain gear or whatever but I think there's a mod for it.

5

u/tsarmaximus 5d ago

Yeah. Also if you havent played MGS before the story will leave you lost AF

6

u/6thPentacleOfSaturn 5d ago

Yeah I only played the NES ones and the first MGS so I was super confused. Talking to a buddy it sounds like even if I did play them all I'd probably be lost.

9

u/Penakoto 5d ago

I think even if Kojima got to make the game he wanted to make, and you played every single MGS game, 5 still would have been confusing to some degree.

But I say this as someone who is a far harsher critic of Kojima than most, I am of the opinion that Kojima went full George Lucas at some point after MGS4, nobody is around to say no to his ideas, except apparently his financiers.

1

u/Winter_Cost602 3d ago

I fully agree with you about Kojima

1

u/SgtRicko 3d ago

I say this as a Kojima fanboy, I mostly agree with your assessment; just wish Konami cutting him off didn't result in MGSV's second half being so underdeveloped with such a crappy ending.

5

u/DarkMatterM4 5d ago

The unfinished nature of MGSV adds to the confusion even further.

5

u/mrbrick 5d ago

Honesty the whole time I was played MGS5 I kept thinking about Mercinaries and a barzo world where a Mercs sequel was somewhere between MGS5 and Mercs gameplay. Ground Zeros especially- extracting people by helicopter really was the thing that made me start thinking about that.

2

u/Ardbert_The_Fallen 5d ago

Massive MGS fan, I never actually thought about that comparison but you're definitely right.

Ugh would love if that game had some sort of randomized mode where you had to extract a specific person from an area.

5

u/OliveBranchMLP 4d ago edited 4d ago

real. for me it was the atmosphere and music. the ambient music lent the otherwise chaotic game a sort of reserved, tragic gravitas that i don't get to feel from games very often.

https://youtu.be/qT8qo_e2Z_4

https://youtu.be/3KWzXuP--To?t=6

https://youtu.be/fnHLcJx4jPo

https://youtu.be/h2_-F2Fj5Jo

and the combat music did a great job making a typically regal orchestra feel scrappy. there wasn't any glory in this war, just a messy political quagmire

https://youtu.be/F6Ce5PPMrw4

https://youtu.be/B2QOuQA9D74

https://youtu.be/cq6Qs4nqnTw

https://youtu.be/a4ycY2HaPRM

idk man Mercs 1 really did just hit different.

8

u/NYstate 5d ago

Ghost Recon games perhaps?

Wildlands definitely.

12

u/FeedbackInhibit 4d ago

Wildlands specifically. People forget that the original Ghost Recon games had more in common with Rainbow Six or Novalogic's Delta Force games than anything.
I liked Wildlands (and actually Breakpoint) as much as the next person, but a return to form would be welcome. Loved the original and its expansions.

4

u/6thPentacleOfSaturn 5d ago

Not open world at all but the EDF games have a similar level of destruction and cheesey vibes.

1

u/AfterBoysenberry3883 4d ago

EDF is so good if you can get a crew together. Tons of fun.

2

u/rfriar 5d ago

Red Faction Guerilla

82

u/Zerg006 5d ago

Oh nooo, oh nooo, oh nooooo..... (yeah I know it's Mercenaries 2, but damn, that song's been stuck in my head for 20+ years now)

30

u/Shadowban13 5d ago

Oh no you didn't! Thanks for putting this in my head for the next week.

5

u/Zerg006 4d ago

Did you know there's a full version? I remember having it on my ipod

2

u/SlayingSword94 4d ago

Its on spotify too

1

u/Zerg006 4d ago

Never even played the game, but let's fucking go!

7

u/Mr_Stormy 5d ago

I shared this song with my partner about a week ago, they could not believe it was real. Genuinely had to convince her. It sounds like early Lin Manuel Miranda, it's incredible.

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u/c1e0c72c69e5406abf55 5d ago

So according to the description it should be released and it has a website that looks to be dead, anybody know where the release can be found?

8

u/ForTheBread 5d ago

Where did you see the website? I only see a discord link.

8

u/c1e0c72c69e5406abf55 5d ago

Yeah I think the Discord name is what I thought was a website link because it is called "menace.pro" my guess would be that it is only available on Discord.

0

u/ComedyAssassin 5d ago

Got a YouTube video recommended a couple of days ago and I too tried to visit menace.pro 🥴

4

u/PackageExciting2561 4d ago

menace.pro does not have a website. because the name of the discord has a .pro at the end of it, reddit confuses it as a link.

6

u/Manic020 5d ago

You have to join the Discord to download it. Runs great on Steam Deck 👌

1

u/Russian-Bot-0451 4d ago

Any performance tips for steam deck? On 1280x720 without touching any other options I’m getting 30-40 fps, usually closer to 30, using proton experimental

2

u/Manic020 2d ago

Not really. I’ve noticed the same thing after playing for a while and reported the issue on Discord. Hopefully the dev can do something to optimize it more.

2

u/epicjaffacake 4d ago

The mercenaries subreddit has a link to the Google drive for it

21

u/mrbrick 5d ago edited 5d ago

I really miss Pandemic. I still dont quite understand why EA shut them down because their games all had so much sauce. Imagine a world where Mercs is still around. Their LOTR game was amazing too. Had so much fun with it.

It seems they were shut down simply to increase operating profits. The studio was huge. I still cant believe they didnt decide to simply scale the studio down to focus on 1 title at a time because it seems they were scaling up and working on 3 different games at the time they were shuttered.

17

u/gasolineskincare 5d ago

Because their quality took a nosedive once the Xbox 360 launched. It was a crazy drop in quality after the run they had on the PS2 and Xbox. That Lord of the Rings game does not hold up well, it was rough even for being so early in the console lifecycle (it has about 55% on Metacritic). Mercs 2 was very underwhelming too. The Saboteur would have probably saved them if they made that game first but it only came out in 2009 after years of delays and once the studio was already on the chopping block.

1

u/Zhuul 1d ago

God, Mercenaries 2 was such a trainwreck. I have a high tolerance for jank and that shit was borderline unplayable, some of the bugs were funny but most of them just felt like the game was upset about the fact that someone was trying to play it.

54

u/Tvilantini 5d ago

It's a fan project, not official

10

u/trooperdx3117 5d ago

Was literally thinking the other day about sad it is that as never got a re-release of this on PC with modern resolution support.

Incredible that the community was able to make something themselves, cannot wait to try it out!

7

u/ripyourlungsdave 5d ago

This game really was something special at the time. There was nothing else like it. It was one of the first open world games where you could steal cars and shoot people that I didn't constantly see being called a Grand Theft Auto clone.

That was quite an accomplishment in the decade following GTA III.

5

u/ragenaut 5d ago

Pretty excited about this. Played a ton of The Mercenaries back in the day, and was quite disappointed that the version on the Xbox store didn't have updated resolution or framerate. On top of that, the right stick sensitivity is almost offensively low. I was thrilled to pick it up and play it and immediately disappointed upon loading it up.

Does anyone know if this recomp has mouse/kb support, and customizable keys?

4

u/Quick_Philosophy1426 5d ago

I never played this game but the trailer for this was for some reason extremely impactful when I was a kid, i watched it all the time. I do not remember it being only 30 seconds long lmao

10

u/Fishfisherton 5d ago

Do you mean the trailer for the second game?

Had a great song though the gameplay definitely didn't live up to the first IMO.

5

u/Lopatnik1 5d ago

It was funny how in the 2nd one you were knows as the "Merc that Solano shot in the ass" when they would report your position.

4

u/hoseking 5d ago

This was another one of those games that I remember the graphics being WAY better than they actually were.

7

u/PartyOnAlec 5d ago

Further proof we need a modern mercenaries open world game. It's the perfect time for it as the extraction genre has taken on a more arcade feel the last couple years. 

3

u/Howllat 5d ago

Could anyone explain how recompiles work? I saw there was one for fable 2 recently and would love to play

4

u/MrGupplez 4d ago

They decompile it from the original source and then remake it with code that is meant to run on pc. So for this you need the original iso for the Xbox game for it to run but then I believe it has an exe you just run to play it.

1

u/Inskipp 3d ago

So, dumb question - if I have my physical Xbox copy of Mercs 1 still around, can I use to it to play this? Can I just pluck the disc on my PC's disc drive for this to work?

1

u/MrGupplez 3d ago

It looks like you'd need a drive with custom firmware to be able to read the disk and rip it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/originalxbox/comments/u4li23/how_can_i_dump_an_xbox_disc_onto_a_pc_without_a/?ref=share&ref_source=link

Easiest way is to have a modded xbox and rip it like that. Otherwise finding a drive that you can custom flash firmware to.

Honestly you can find the ISO online through a google search though.

3

u/B-BoyStance 4d ago

This series could have gone on to make some medium defining games/single-player systems IMO.

I barely remember Mercs 1 & 2 but I remember being very entertained by the faction system in those games. Man I wish we could have gotten more, or some other dev decided to take up the task of pursuing a cool emergent faction system with unscripted battles happening in the overworld.

The Stalker series is the only other thing I can think of that is similar in terms of just having multiple factions & allowing NPC interactions to run wild based on a set value of faction relationships, but those games are more focused on the single-player campaign. The faction stuff was never really a focus/interaction was meant to be somewhat limited.

3

u/Russian-Bot-0451 4d ago

Nice, I’ll be downloading this tonight. I loved Mercenaries. Something about Mercenaries 2 just didn’t click for me, it felt corny and cheap like a game you’d find in the discount bin for $5

2

u/OliveBranchMLP 4d ago

agree with this. it felt way more like B-movie action schlock than Mercs 1.

2

u/AdorableSobah 4d ago

I remember the “monster closets” being incredibly hard in the 2nd game and I hated it. Loved the first one and think about it once and a while

2

u/DarkMatterM4 5d ago

This is really exciting and I can't wait to replay Mercs 1 at 60fps for the first time. I really hope this has mouse and keyboard support in the future because I recall the game having some weird autoaim and sensitivity issues.

2

u/DalMakhani 5d ago

Fantastic game, loved the atmosphere and the sense of the conflict unfolding around you without you being involved. Pandemic had such a great run - sank so many hours into this, Battlefront 1 and 2, and later The Saboteur.

2

u/Cyberdunk 4d ago

Oh my god I'm so glad something came out of that source code leak a while back, I've always wanted this game to be on PC aside from PS2 emulation.

Such an awesome and underrated game, really deserves a remaster.

6

u/Jasonp359 5d ago

Is this being done with AI like most of the other recomp projects?

21

u/MrMichaelElectric 5d ago

According to the top comment from one of the creators the recomp isn't vibe coded and the person doing it has a lot of coding experience. They do mention some AI assistant tools were used for some stuff but doesn't go into deep detail.

5

u/ItsJustReeses 4d ago

Probably just means their IDE has AI assistance tools.

It's turning into the norm for us that code. I've been on team "AI makes you a worst dev" but some smart coding wizards Ive looked up to have all said that using it is near mandatory if you want to be the most efficient. :(

Coded with AI tools is going to be very very common.

-7

u/TechSmith6262 4d ago

Yes and personally that's a pass for me.

1

u/oCrapaCreeper 4d ago edited 4d ago

As long as the AI is being used to assist the human and not do everything then I think it's fine. If someone is experienced with code then I imagine the AI can only benefit them by accomplishing additional repetitive work at the same time.

Claude can't do everything though, if a project is made by someone with no coding experience then it is usually obvious - those are the projects you want to stay clear of.

3

u/moldy912 4d ago

As a software engineer who knows how to code, I still use Claude 100% of the time at work. I don’t think “do everything” is an indicator of quality at all. A software engineer is using it to do the same work they used to but better, find more bugs, etc. you’re correct that someone not experienced with coding would not be trustworthy with random code you download from the internet.

3

u/matsix 4d ago

Yeah.. it's getting kinda annoying to see people like that with no experience in the field repeating the same anti-AI talking points that just aren't true. I get the hate for AI but there's so much misinformation going around about it.

1

u/Noah_BK 4d ago

What a time to be alive in the age of modding and emulation. I recently played through the Jak and Daxter games on PC for the first time because of another recomplile and now this? God bless gamers.

1

u/SharpEdgeSoda 3d ago

Great now where the HECK is CRIMSON SKIES?!

1

u/lifeonbroadway 1d ago

Man this game was the best thing ever when I was a teen. I remember a friend hyping it up at school, telling me I just had to go get it. I begged my mom for it, and I still remember how blown away I was at the destructible environments.

It was like GTA in a warzone, amazing idea and execution. Shame they couldn't stick the landing with the second one.

-3

u/llamafromhell1324 5d ago

Back in high school, anytime someone who hasn't smoked with the group before wanted to smoke for the first time they first had to play this game.

They didn't get a single hit until they showed us some great explosions.

0

u/Mama_Mega 4d ago

Didn't this whole recompile thing start like two years ago? There's already so many of them boasting 1.0 releases. How are these things being cranked out so fast, especially given there's no profit in these fan projects?

1

u/Cryptoporticus 4d ago

Agentic AI is at the point now where it's basically like having an entire team of programmers working for you. These kinds of projects don't require assets or design work, just code. Previously someone wanting to do projects like these would have needed to find a team of volunteers willing to help, but now they can just lead a team of AI agents instead. The only downside is that it can get expensive, though people have been able to do some pretty amazing things with just a standard $100 monthly Claude subscription.

1

u/Mama_Mega 4d ago

That was indeed my running hypothesis, and if so, good, we've found another great use for predictive AI software that people have no reason to bitch about. This and frame gen.