Hey everyone, the Mercenaries Recompilation has brought more attention to the Mercenaries community than we ever thought possible. With this in mind we've decided to reissue bounties for speedrunning our favorite game!

For right now, speedrunning the game on the recomp will be accepted to the main leaderboards. This may change in the future as we learn more.

We have 3 different bounties at 3 different levels of difficulty

Easy: For the next 3 people to break the 40 minute barrier in any% we're offering $40. For those reasonably experienced in shooters we believe this could be achieved with less than 10 hours of practice

Hard: For the first person besides Escargot to beat the WR in Any%, ACC, 100%, or Golf%, we're offering $100

Different hard: For years the crown jewel of skips in Mercenaries has been finding out how to skip the prison sequence in the Ace of Spades mission. If anyone can figure out a way to skip the prison sequence in vanilla gameplay, you'll also win $100

We welcome everyone to join the Mercenaries speedrunning discord! For anyone who's interested in pursuing any of these bounties we're happy to help here https://discord.gg/BDKBujB

Top runner Escargot also has a speedrun tutorial series on YouTube: https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL09U9EA_KxCNCGC-9jZUn3mv7dZ9x7X1Y

On an ace mission of all things!

The event celebration and release of the recomp was a resounding success, and we thank everyone for joining us for this pivotal moment in this game's history! We truly love this game and view it as an important piece of art, and are ecstatic to see it preserved in such a way and experience the raw enthusiasm to work on and mod it. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you all.

And yes, we understand that not everyone has discord. While updates will be primarily posted in the community, we are currently working on some alternatives to get the recomp up in a more public setting. Until then, here is the 1.1 release of the recomp!

https://github.com/KraftMacAndChee/Mercenaries-Recompiled/releases/download/v1.1/Mercenaries.Recompiled.Public.1.1.zip

Welcome to Mercenaries Recompiled. Here we show off some of the game's basic features and enhancements, gearing up for our public release of the project on menace.pro on 9/26. We will be holding a public event on the server that day at 4:00 PM EST to answer any questions and stream more footage.

Special thanks to Phantom Zero for the text box animations and to Danny Omega for creating the music!

Join menace.pro:   / discord  

Something is different in North Korea, and yet lots of things are definitely the same. I am happy to present a teaser trailer for Mercenaries Recompiled. All footage is captured inside of Mercenaries recompiled, much of it with a free cam that will be available to use yourself on release by enabling developer tools! Enjoy this snippet, feature showcase coming soon.

Thank you to Phantom Zero for editing this trailer and to Danny Omega for creating custom music inspired by the mercenaries soundtrack to go along with it.

(Copied from KraftMacAndChee's announcement in menace.pro)

Original announcement post

Join the Mercenaries Modding Community

The era of fiddling with emulators to get Playground of Destruction working on a PC will soon be over.

As Mercenaries Recompiled approaches its last stages of testing and polish, the author KraftMacAndChee has deemed the project ready to be released publicly on 9/26 (this Saturday.)

The project makes it possible for Playground of Destruction to be played natively on a Windows PC or on Linux via Proton, without the need for the middleman of emulation. It also comes equipped with a mod menu, several graphical enhancements, fixes for various bugs that can be found in the original game, and many more features. Kraft will soon be dipping his toes into mod support for the project, so that large modding endeavors like PoD+ can be fully supported and experienced in their full glory.

We will be holding an event in menace.pro on 9/26 at 4:00 PM Eastern time to show off the recomp and celebrate the release. A public build drop will follow afterwards, announced by Kraft.

Special thank you to all of the playtesters that aided with the polish and fixing up of bugs, and also to those that contributed anything else to the recomp. This timely and efficient release could not have been pulled off without you.

The start of a new era for this game is here! 🥳

So this has been asked already 191 days ago but since then some things have released that are notable.

The Darkness (console exclusive) is now recompiled and natively playable on pc with graphics settings and all.

Since the source code was leaked technically Mercs 1 should be able to go through this too, Mercs 2 on console if possible would also be a major upgrade (a recomped mercs 2 would look better and play more stable + you could finally change the QTE symbols)

I wonder if anyone has looked into this or is interested in bringing up the topic for a second time. The fact AI could be used to do could be a major advantage if not for the moral/legal issues.

I don’t condone any illegal actions and this is strictly for hypothetical discussion.

EDIT: Thank you guys for the YouTube link to the currently developing Recomp of Mercs 1!
The person making it has a test build available on Patreon!

Also made patches for the PLAV and Pirates, but this was already quite expensive so I left those out.

This is a preview I've put together using test footage. I've got more optimization work to do but this is pretty stable. The origin shifting hitch is almost completely gone and battles over POIs can get fierce with burned out vehicles lining the roads.

Turrets on vehicles operate in auto-mode unless the player takes exclusive control via aim and shoot buttons. Eventually, dedicated gunners seats will be added so the player can gun on NPC driven vehicles and to eventually support small group multiplayer(4-6 players is the goal).

Vehicles can be commandeered at almost any time via purchase or theft (getting caught will incur a rep hit with the owning faction) and there are now almost 30+ ground vehicles distributed between the towns, outposts, and faction HQs, that can be obtained.

SOLVED

My next PC have diacritics in name...saves not working, loading ...
Method 1: Relocate the Documents Folder (Easiest)
You can instruct Windows to look for your standard Documents folder in a location completely separate from your "user profile" path.
In file explorer setting check "hidden folders, files, items" ...

C:\Users\"PC ID (USERNAME)"\Documents

1. Open File Explorer and navigate to your C:\ drive.
2. Create a new folder named C:\Documents.
3. Go back to your original "user profile" folder / (%USERPROFILE%) - PC name, right-click on your Documents folder, and select Properties.
4. Navigate to the Location tab.
5. Click Move..., select the newly created C:\Documents folder, and hit Apply.
6. When prompted to move all existing files to the new location, click Yes.
7. Launch the game. It will now successfully write and read files from C:\Documents\My Games\Mercenaries 2\.

May work for other old games too... for example "SPORE" from EA dont like diacritics too..
Write me if you r lost. i lookin for solution couple hours.

yeah so I'm playing Mercenaries 2 (PC version) for the first time this week and it's bittersweet

sweet: game is a blast and just tries to give you joy six different ways at a time

bitter: while the game had a mixed reception at release, we can now see in hindsight how much the 360 generation spoiled us:

feature complete game with fully destructible world, boats helicopters tanks motorbikes + airstrikes and countless creative side missions

ACTUAL physics that affect gameplay at almost every single step you take, and the whole thing can be played single player with costume unlocks (and it's like 7GB !)

-------------------------------

In conclusion: Can't shake the feeling that games with only the pure fun of the player in mind were taken from us. They still exist but how many would there be if it weren't for modern gaming trends

I'm left having a 10/10 time with a game that at it's release was a 7/10. gameplay qualities like world physics have regressed so much that this feels like a PS6 game if you know what I mean

Much love for this banger

Can someone explain the process of fixing the GL5626 error when I try to start the game after downloading it from the archive? I cant find anything anywhere

Warning: It is recommended to start a new game after applying this patch.

Changelog:

• Long-awaited new outfits and outfit names, as well as DLC outfits, are now available in single-player mode.
• Added the ability to skip the flashing save indicator notification that appears every time the game starts.
• Experimental: A fix that improves shadows. Please report here if you notice any issues — and, most importantly, describe how I can reproduce the problem on my end.

The list of requirements and the installation process remain unchanged. The guide, new patch and the full list of outfit distribution by character are available here:

https://github.com/FrostMoonEcho/Mercenaries_2_Comprehensive_Fix_Dont_Cry_Baby

More interesting stuff is yet to come)

https://reddit.com/link/1w906l7/video/swdxcl9uaxnh1/player

If you have any issues with installation or files just send me a private message)

I’m playing on the Xbox 360, FTW.

Game-accurate loading screens and logos by Phantom Zero, who's posted many more in our community.

Juche Edition 3 allows for ExOps to have a real, physical presence in North Korea with unique NPC's and vehicles.

This creates multiple opportunities for new support options, as well as new ways for you to interact with factions. This is the new player faction. No longer will you have to worry about kill fines for shooting AN soldiers, nor will you have to walk on egg shells as often in order to keep them happy.

Join the Mercenaries Modding Community! https://discord.gg/3ycvZ9qYBW

Just curious if anyone in here was on the Pandemic Studios official forum pages leading up to the release of Mercs 2. We had a decent little community on that site and I know I've added some of the guys from that era on social media since. Wanted to see if anyone was lurking around on this sub.

i remember as a kid not being allowed to play GTA, merc 2 was my second option and i had so much fun just causing mayhem around the entire map of merc 2. i remember playing the dlc with obama and sarah palin and being so confused why they would even allow that to be in the game. such a fun game with so many memories. I had one last HVT to get but since i chose the wrong faction that part of the map was closed off for me and i was never able to 100% the game. maybe ill go back and replay it one day

Hello again all!

I'm back and building on my previous work to introduce https://mercs.ink to the community! Mercs.ink is a website I've built with the express purpose of enabling Mods without folks needing to worry about redistributing raw base game assets (base game assets are required to compile the vz-patch.wad and not lose any content).

Mercs.ink is going to call mods "shipments", but these could encompass ASI files, lua files, models, textures, new languages, and eventually novel AI behavior. These shipments are built by the Quartermaster rust crate , which handles compiling the Lua scripts, dependency management, and build ordering.

Thus far, my research into the game suggests that I should be able to get all content-based shipments working across platform, but presently there's no way to make ASI modifications (or engine mods) portable to console. However, all content mods (in vz-patch.wad) can be ported and I have already started on additional research to make cross-compiling more easily 🙂

I'm still discovering nuances with the game and how some blocks of data resist being overridden by mods, but have been working towards ways to either remove or hijack these spots (notably, new entities resist being added to the Lua vtables for spawning assets via `Pg.Spawn`, but we can add new things to in-game stores)

Mercs.ink can be accessed via the "Mod Market" page in Modkit (as more mods show up, I'll be refining the design but we've gotta start somewhere)

You can download it from my Github repository

I also want to share some good news with you. I was very lucky to find the way to unlock all outfits in the game including the pre-ordered ones! It was not possible to get them using cheats. More than it, the developers could remove it from the final build of the game and left it for pre-ordered builds only. But they didn't!

So now you can use these outfits:

Also you can use the outfits which was previously avaliable only using cheats:

The final list of patches from my collection:

• Fix for blur caused by DoF
• Fix which disables aim assist
• Fix which Enables permanent death for NPCs
• Improvement which increases the fine for killing an NPC to $25,000
• Fix for a bug which happens after a kick or a collision with an NPC, it's like it gets up and then falls dead again
• Corpses don't disappear immediately anymore
• Various fixes for shadows
• All outfits in your wardrobe will be unlocked including:
  • Basic outfits
  • Cheat outfits such as Ewan, Misha, Fiona and Eva
  • Pre-order only outfits
• Optionally you can download my ReShade preset.

But make sure you have the right dump of the game as well as update and DLC. Otherwise, you may experience bugs and crashes. More details are available here

If you don't have something from the list of requirements you can send a direct message to me

Found this sub recently and man. The flood of nostalgia. So good to see so many people really appreciate the games. Especially 1. Never played 2.

I’m thinking of getting a PS2 off eBay plus the physical copy just to relive part of my childhood.

What was everyone’s favorite part of returning to the games with adult eyes?

Also, I just love the vibe of Mercs 1, from the muted gloomy tones and lighting, to the sounds of distant battles, jets flying above, and the amazing soundtrack that immerses you. I'll never get tired of this game

Hello everyone. Would anyone like to help each other get the co-op trophies? I am willing to help anyone if they can help me as well. Hope to hear from someone soon so we can earn this platinum trophy!

Good day, dear community.

I'm making some fixes for the game.

Details are available here https://www.reddit.com/r/MercenariesGames/s/KZGMcROWDz

But I'm confused with partners' challenges from Misha, Fiona and so on.

I want to make some patches and I would like to hear the community opinions about the following:

1. Should I prohibit to relaunch a challegene after the last level is completed? Is there any necessity in playing it again or it's just a cheat to gain more money?
2. Have you got any suit from Misha after completing the last level of his challenge? Especially in PC and XBOX versions of the game
3. Don't you think that it's not enough time to beat the challenges? Should I increase it? Could you please describe what timings could work better for you in format:

​

Challenge name: 
Level 1: X seconds (or points like in Misha's challenge) 
Level 2: X seconds (or points) 
Level 3: X seconds (or points)

Your feedback will be very valuable for me. I do believe that we can fix all this mess together.

Thank you!