In the game, the player assumes the role of a mercenary commander leading a team of powerful combat vehicles called battlemechs.

Players assume the role of a mercenary commander leading a "mech lance", or group of four giant humanoid-shaped combat vehicles.

In addition to choosing hardware, the player can also specialize the mech's pilots (called "mechwarriors") by selecting talents from a skill tree.

[3][4][5][6] In a map published by Harebrained Schemes during the Kickstarter campaign, the Inner Sphere is depicted as an area of space stretching between 400 and 600 light-years away from Earth in every direction.

The Reach lies between the peripheral realms of the Taurian Concordat and the Magistracy of Canopus, and bordering the Inner Sphere Successor State of the Capellan Confederation.

[8] The Aurigan Reach was created by the Harebrained Schemes design team led by Kiva Maginn as a space where players could move through an original story line without infringing on the already set lore of Third Succession Wars BattleTech.

On the day of Kamea's coronation, a coup d'état is launched by the newly established Aurigan Directorate, an autocracy led by Espinosa.

Kamea reveals the salvage operation of the Argo was a test of the player and their mercenaries, as well as a means to equip them in order to fight the Directorate on her behalf, with financial backing from the Magistracy.

After liberating Smithon, Lord Karosa refuses to cooperate with Kamea, bitter about his son's incarceration at the IceBox and his daughter's death under Directorate rule.

In exchange for Karosa's aid, the player destroys a Directorate weapons smuggling dropship, and in the process capture Espinosa's daughter and Kamea's cousin Victoria.

Karosa decrypts the black box, which gives intel about an ancient Star League Defense Force (SLDF) outpost on the planet Artru.

On Artru, the Restoration uncovers an enormous cache of high-tech SLDF battlemechs, but are attacked by Commodore Samuel Ostergaard of the Taurian Concordat.

The Taurians reveal have allied with the Directorate in the wake of the attack on Perdition, and Ostergaard mentions his son was killed on Smithon by the Restoration forces.

Backed into a corner, Kamea destroys the entire cache to deny them from the Taurians and Directorate, escaping with only a small handful of Battlemechs, while the virus is isolated and contained on a drive on board the Argo.

Heading to the planet Itrom, Lord Gallas offers the Restoration an opportunity to break the alliance between the Directorate and Concordat - she reveals a lead on some valuable information located on House Madeira's homeworld of Guldra.

The player's mercenaries use the contained virus from the SLDF cache, and upload it to Ostergaard's ship, resulting in a crash that kills him and destroys many Directorate forces.

The studio is led by Jordan Weisman, who created the BattleTech franchise while working at board game and wargaming publisher FASA.

[1] Along with Weisman, the development team will be led by Mitch Gitelman, the producer for MechCommander and MechAssault, and Mike McCain, who served as creative director for Harebrained Scheme's games in the Shadowrun franchise.

[1] Harebrained Schemes paid special attention to ensuring that the size of the mechs was apparent to players, despite the limitations of the top-down view in showing scale.

[1] In May 2017, Paradox Interactive announced that they had partnered with Harebrained Schemes to publish the game, meaning that they will provide additional funds, as well as marketing and localization support.

[22] The third DLC, Heavy Metal, adds eight new weapon systems, eight new battlemechs (including a design created for the game), and a Flashpoint mission which sets the player against two characters from Wolf's Dragoons mercenary company.