They've offloaded quite a bit of concept art in recent months, but the developers of the upcoming free-to-play and officially licensed mech-combat game Mechwarrior Online have finally released some of the first in-game stills. The screenshots offer various perspectives of the Catapult, one of the more iconic inner-sphere battlemechs:

The quintessential indirect-fire ‘mech, the Catapult excels at blanketing a target in LRM fire. Most useful when used in tandem with a spotter, the Catapult can fire on enemies without being in visual contact with them. In addition to its excellent LRM weapons, the Catapult also has jump jets and four medium lasers, allowing it to quickly move out of close combat while offering fairly scary counter-fire.

Hit the thumbs below for a close look or head over to the official site for more details.

http://www.ausgamers.com/gameres/5548/images/230/Catapult_C1_02_1.jpg http://www.ausgamers.com/gameres/5548/images/230/Catapult_K2_02_1.jpg http://www.ausgamers.com/gameres/5548/images/230/Catapult_K2_03_1.jpg

Mmmm, loving the open world. True to the original Mechwarrior games

Oh the memories. LRM20s wasnt it? Unleash hell from a distance.

Looking pretty sweet.

Nah, i only ever played mech 4. Fond memories of this vid:

So will this be like Battlefield 3 but with Mechs? If so, that will be sweet.

Mechwarrior 2 was great.

Using a locust to run reallllly fast up to the legs of an atlas and just lash into it point blank was win.

TicMan, you're a f***ing legend :D

Thanks for a blast from the past that I wasn't expecting to see today :)

MechWarrior 2 shaped my childhood, I even wrote stories about mechs in class lol.

Mechwarrior 2!
<3 *nostalgic teary eyes*

Mechwarrior 2 is probably my earliest fondest memory of gaming.

I remember coming home from school knowing we have a new PC and watching that Mechwarrior 2 intro for the first time.

Everyone played GBL as well right? Very worthy expansion pack for Mech2.

So will this be like Battlefield 3 but with Mechs? If so, that will be sweet.

Not sure if they'll allow you to leave your battlemech. Or even have aerospace or tanks.

However, there's Mechwarrior Living Legends (Mod for Crysis Wars). That has tanks, aerospace, vtols, mechs. You can also run around on foot, but that's not the core gameplay.

Yeah Mech2 was a huge part of my gaming as a teenager. The amount of hours I must have played that game would be ridiculous.

I played and enjoyed Mech 2 (and GBL and Mercs) but of Mech 2-3-4 I loved the gameplay in 3.

Smashing around on the battlefield with the mobile resup/repair bases was an AWESOME gameplay mechanic.

I'm still a much bigger fan of the 'American' take on Mech's (when compared to the Japanese 'superfast' alternative)

It was all about Heavy Gear II:

can't believe no one posted the Mechwarrior 3 video

They don't look in game to me..