Inspired by a question in our forums, we found a follow-up from a couple of weeks ago on MekTek.net to the announcement in early July that a free release of MechWarrior 4 was coming "soon." It turns out the announcement was almost as unexpected for them as for the rest of us, and they have been working ever since to remove DRM from the game, update their matchmaking software that's taking the place of Microsoft's now-defunct Zonematch service, and finalize the software that will allow the game to be patched after release. Other issues must also be resolved prior to release, including completion of legal paperwork and the completion of proper server infrastructure:

The unfortunate aspect of all this great news is that all of these new developments could have been ironed out before the announcement but they were not. Our partners felt an initial announcement was necessary and so did we. We plan to release Mechwarrior4 for FREE when developments are completed and considered stable. We are also waiting on legal paper work from lawyers and as anyone out there that has worked in the professional industry knows, something of this magnitude takes time on all fronts. MekTek is not receiving any financial support from the partners regarding this release and obviously no one can quit their daytime job to get the job done faster either. The release has entered beta status and will be delivered to the world very shortly. MekTek is supported through donations from our community and thus far we have received 50% of our goal to cover server infrastructure costs. We hope the community will continue to support us during this very busy time to ensure we have the best possible hardware in place for this release.