I think it’s worthwhile to talk about the Mechwarrior 2 trilogy as a whole (MW2, GBL, and Mercs). They all use the same engine and mechanics, but especially Mercs receive some significant gameplay system additions that has inspired subsequent Mercenaries titles.
Mechwarrior 3 was not released until 1999 and developed by Zipper Interactive, because it had undergone severe development difficulties when FASA Interactive had tried to make their own Mechwarrior 3 using the engine from the Virtual Pods.
FASA owned the Mechwarrior/Battletech license and were unhappy with how Activision had been handling it with the problems with developing MW2: The Clans. That’s why it was not renewed and instead Activision “pivoted” to the less successful Heavy Gear 1 and 2. That’s why they brought it in-house with publishing agreement with Microprose, but FASA had their own problems, so around 1998 they moved the MW3 project over to Zipper Interactive who crunched the actual MW3 game in under 2 years of dev time.
