Yesterday, a new MechWarrior videogame was announced, with Piranha Games and Smith & Tinker handling the development, described as being a reboot of the series that would focus on the mech to mech combat that made the series exciting in the first place. And now it seems that MekTek.net is set to allow gamers to download and play, for free, Mechwarrior 4, the last game in the series to be released.

The company is saying that players will have access to a fresh package set to include the original game, the Mercenaries expansion and two Mech packs, which were launched by Microsoft. Because the last piece of content for the game appeared way back in 2002, MekTek will probably need to tinker with the game a bit in order to make sure that it runs on Windows XP, on the newer Vista and maybe even on the upcoming Windows 7.

MekTek is stating that “this free release of MechWarrior 4 commemorates BattleTech’s 25th anniversary as well as MekTek’s 10th anniversary, and will allow BattleTech fans a chance to re-discover MechWarrior, as well as help us bring in a new army of players who are discovering MechWarrior and the BattleTech universe for the first time, completely for free.”

It makes sense to release Mechwarrior 4 and all the content that arrived on it for free. After all, no one was going to pick up the game in stores and it will allow nostalgic players to see how the previous iteration of the series ended before experiencing the reboot that is set to be MechWarrior. The free release should also help re-build communities dedicated to the franchise.

The new MechWarrior is set to take place on planet Deschler and will feature a young noble as the leader of the resistance against a Kurita invasion. The start date for the new title is 3015.