Heavy Gear Assault seeks to revive the franchise with awesome crumbly environments

Because we can never have enough big stompy mechs, we've brought in some new friends to join Hawken and MechWarrior Online. Today's Kickstarter heavyweight is Heavy Gear Assault—yep, a continuation of the mech-based universe that spanned not only two Activision games in the late '90s, but also a tactical tabletop war game and a combat card game. So much stompery! Its new developers, a blend of hardcore gamers and industry vets, are hoping to convince you to chip into their $800,000 asking price by way of this helpful destruction demonstration.

Now wasn't that fun? Play it on a loop and it becomes something quite mesmerizing. Let's hope the same hyper-detailed destruction physics will be applied to the mechs as well, because Heavy Gear Assault is aiming for a special place in eSports, and I can envision their livestreams doing very well indeed if every enemy defeat is as cinematic as that crumbling bridge.

Their Kickstarter is currently spinning up, with 39 days left to conjure a cool 800 grand from your pockets (with any extra being put towards some very ambitious stretch goals )—though it's worth noting that as Heavy Gear Assault is planned to be free-to-play, most of the various tiers' rewards come in the form of equivalent amounts of in-game cash. Alternatively, you can pledge directly on the website .