* CreatorKiller: Infinite Games Publishing first two games, was both Piranha Games Inc (PGI) ''Online'' and the now defunct or dead in development ''Tactics'', through a licensing agreement with PGI. As PGI began making several big changes as soon as they broke off from Infinite Games and regained complete control of ''Online'', including communicating with the player base of ''Online'' more and coming out with several major in game deals and updates, as well as Infinite Games completely Fracking Up Beyond All Repair trust with consumers over their disastrous handling of Tactics (see DevelopmentHell and VaporWare below), it's become quite popular to blame them for PGI's disastrous early run. The problems with ''Tactics'' has led to IGP closing its doors quietly in November 2014.
* DevelopmentHell:
** ''Mech Warrior Tactics'' is most definitely this. It's been in development for well over 2 years now. Two end of year promises in both 2012 and 2013 for the game to be out in open beta have come and gone, and the original developers were let go because of that. As of late August of 2014, its still in closed Beta, requiring those interested to either hope they get picked as part of the Beta Key lottery, or pay for a founder package, with little to no word from the current developers on its status.
*** At the end of August, the entire Tactics website down, with a message to check back in 72 hours for updates, citing that there was a major hardware update. However, at the same time, someone from third development team, Blue Lizard games, posted [[http://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/169405-mechwarrior-tactics/page__view__findpost__p__3686326 this response]] to a question asking what was going on when the maintenance went past the posted time frame. Needless to say, fans finding out that the dev team had been quietly removed 8 months ago, has fueled speculation that the game has been cancelled. Those who bought Founders packages, have begun expressing their outrage at Infinite Games Publishing for hiding this fact.
*** After 3 weeks of Mechwarrior fans asking questions and beginning to threaten legal and financial actions against IGP, they FINALLY updated the MW Tactics website to.....tell the truth that fans had already found out from Blue Lizard, and to now admit they had no servers to run the game now, and are still looking for a new dev team 10 months after getting rid of Blue Lizard games. Yet they insist the game is somehow still in development and the MW tactics website claiming it will remain down for a "While longer". With ''Online'' being handed completely off to Piranha Games Inc, and news and evidence of staff being let go, fired, or jumping ship pointing to the publisher shutting down, the game is now looking like {{VaporWare}}.
*** The publisher has entered bankrupcy on October 1st. Since their outstanding liabilities amount to 24 '''million''' Canadian dollars (about 20 million USD), the chances of any founders obtaining refunds - unless they already did - are effectively nil. ''Mechwarrior Tactics'' is being auctioned off as part of the bankrupcy proceedings, making any chance of it seeing the light of day rather questionable
** Within ''Living Legends'', the official UrbanWarfare map got stuck in development hell. Titled "Coldsteel", it was visible in some early previews prior to the game's first release. However, it was repeatedly pushed to the backburner due the difficultly of acquiring enough environmental assets to make a city that didn't have [[CutAndPasteEnvironments the same 4 buildings copy-pasted]]; almost every artist was making new gameplay assets (mechs, tanks, etc) instead. The community eventually got a unofficial urban maps in the form of "Urban Jungle" and "Seaport", which used a purchased building package and copy-pasted buildings in different configurations, respectively.
* DuelingGames: With the ''{{VideoGame/Starsiege}}'' series. Ironic, since the developer for those games were the same for the first ''Mechwarrior'' game. Mech 3 was the last game which competed with Starsiege, as later games in the Starsiege universe are fast paced first person shooters with jetpacks - ''Videogame/{{Tribes}}''
* DummiedOut: The two transport [=VTOLs=] -- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNlfRLq6EBQ the Karnov and Anhur]] -- exist in-game but cannot be bought normally, due to their massive size and unfinished (and very buggy) state. They have independently controlled turrets for battlearmor players, [[GunshipRescue allowing it to function like a gunship]], multiple battlearmor can ride in the back, and it was originally intended to be able to airlift vehicles in the back. The only way to get the Karnov or Anhur is to load up a map with either of the transports pre-placed.
* ExecutiveMeddling: Despite the Mechwarrior franchise having been plagued with copyright issues since the beggining, this has not stopped Piranha Games - the ''Mechwarrior Online'' developers - from trying to kill off their competition. Through "[[MetaphoricallyTrue mutual]] [[ArmyOfLawyers agreement]] [[BlatantLies with the project leads]]", they killed off ''Mechwarrior Living Legends'' development. They have legally threatened the [=MekTek=] team, the guys who re-released ''Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries'' for free and who were developing several Mechwarrior/Battletech games - ''Solaris Arena'' and ''Assault Tech 1: Battletech''. Rumor is that the developers of ''Mechwarrior Tactics'', the free-to-play game based on ''Tabletopgame/BattleTech'' will try to shut down further development of ''[=MegaMek=]'', a free and open-source [=BattleTech=] game for the PC.
** Also, now the free version of ''Mechwarrior 4'' is no longer available due to "legal issues"
** Interestingly enough, it would seem Piranha Games itself was also subjected to this via Infinite Game's Publishing. Since Piranha bought all rights to MWO out from Infinite Games Publishing, they've subtly hinted that they were not happy with the way Infinite Games was running things. The improvements to MWO in recent months lend some more weight to that as well.
** How ''Mechwarrior 3'' was created. FASA Interactive, the developers of the two ''Mechcommander'' games, began work on ''Mechwarrior 3'' but development on the game engine had badly delayed the game. When Microprose, the original publishers, got bought up by Hasbro Interactive (and FASA Interactive ended up purchased by Microsoft), Hasbro handed the project off to Zipper Interactive which essentially created the game from scratch with their in-house game engine. FASA's game would ultimately become ''Mechwarrior 4''. This is why ''Mechwarrior 3'' has an unusually large number of companies credited in its intro.
* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Due to legal issues with Harmony Gold and the "Unseen", it's unlikely that the first two [=MechWarrior=] games will ever seen a rerelease.
* PromotedFanboy: The original ''Mechwarrior Living Legends'' project heads were hired by [[Videogame/{{Crysis}} Crytek]] to help develop the new [=CryEngine=]. In ''Living Legends'' itself, several popular map designers were hired onto the team and had their maps made official.
* ScrewedByTheLawyers: ''Mechwarrior Living Legends'' essentially had their ''[=MechWarrior=]'' licensed yanked with the release of ''[=MechWarrior=] Online'' as PGI didn't want to "double up their efforts" to compete with ''Living Legends''. The ''Mechwarrior 4: Mercenaries'' freeware re-release by [=MekTek=] suffered a similar fate when Smith & Tinker, its sponsor owner of the IP went bust (transferring the IP back to Microsoft), but ended up far worse as it was based on a pre-existing commercial game, so they had to [[UnPerson cease distribution of the game and kill its master servers]]. [=MekTek=] completely divested itself from the franchise and moved to working on a ''Tabletopgame/HeavyGear'' title - but ''that'' turned into VaporWare under some extremely shady circumstances.
* TroubledProduction: ''Mechwarrior 2'' [[http://www.localditch.com/mechwarrior/mech2/clans.html had a troubling development]] stemming from trying to do a bit too much on a tight schedule and budget, along with behind-the-scenes disagreements about release dates and IP licensing (that may or may have not led to Activision going with ''TabletopGame/HeavyGear'' instead in the future) that led to it missing its original '93 target and getting the entire dev team replaced, and finally being released in '95.
* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Before the release of Mechwarrior 2, its early alpha and beta stages were more like the original Mechwarrior game in visuals and also had a couple of clan mechs that didn't see use in the final Mechwarrior 2 release.
** FASA Studio began some pre-production work on ''Mechwarrior 5'' soon after completing Mercenaries. However Microsoft canceled the game in favor of focusing on ''VideoGame/MechAssault''. Based on the hint at the end of Mercenaries, the story was going to focus on fighting the Word of Blake.
** What eventually became Mechwarrior Online was supposed to have a single-player campaign, and it [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orhOvbfyyJw looked freakin' awesome]]. The single player campaign will finally be released as ''Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries'', currently scheduled for December 2019.
** ''Living Legends'' 1.0.0 (the "final" product rather than the "[[PerpetualBeta beta]]" everyone was playing) and post-"release" content updates were planned to finally feature the [[DesignItYourselfEquipment Mechlab]], [[BaseOnWheels Mobile Point Bases]], more [[PoweredArmor battlearmor]] types, three new gamemodes (including Capture The Flag), internal damage, a unique HUD for aerospace fighters, the battlearmor claw, unique ambient sounds for each mech, and a dozen new tank/mech/aerospace assets such as the Kodiak, Annihilator, Alacorn, and Men Shen. [[http://www.mechlivinglegends.net/2013-01/mechwarrior-living-legends-final-release-0-7-0/ Details]] [[http://forum.mechlivinglegends.net/index.php/topic,18950.0.html more details]]. Unfortunately, a [[AllegedlyFreeGame certain other mech game]] and [[ArmyOfLawyers legal issues]] caused by said game [[ExecutiveMeddling forced development to come to a stop at 0.7.1]].