When the developers of the original, Dynamix, were off the market due to having been bought by Sierra, Activision put an internal team on making the sequel to MechWarrior. Performance issues had it stuck in development hell for over two years. Sierra/Dynamix humiliated them by throwing EarthSiege on the market, a game which didn't just look like a proper sequel, but played like it, too. Though there was still some fight left in Activision and they struck back.