During a panel at Mech_Con 2016, MechWarrior Online developer Piranha Games announced the return of the MechWarrior franchise to single player with MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries.

The announcement, over fourteen years after the release of the old and glorious MechWarrior 4: Mercenanries published by Microsoft Game Studios, will probably bring a smile to the faces of many veteran fans like me.

In MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries you will adopt the role of a rookie MechWarrior pilot thrust into combat as the Third Succession War continues to fracture the Inner Sphere. Take contracts from the factions of your choosing and engage in tactical, first-person, PvE ‘Mech combat through an immersive, career-based Mercenary campaign driven by player choice. Victory, prestige, and profit will not only require skill on the battlefield, but in the acquisition, maintenance, and enhancement of your BattleMechs.

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is being developed by a dedicated team at Piranha Games, and won't interfere with the continued development of MechWarrior Online.

The game is set in 3015, and below you can read more of the setting if you're not familiar with MechWarrior.

"Humanity has expanded to the stars, colonizing a vast region of space known as the Inner Sphere. Where the Star League once ruled in relative stability, generations of countless wars, alliances, and betrayals have divided the Inner Sphere into five distinct Successor States. These states, also known as the Great Houses, have fought and quarreled for centuries over the remnants of the Star League and control of the Inner Sphere. They are now in the midst of a Third Succession War, one which has been raging for almost 150 years.

While the battlefields of the Inner Sphere burn with an array of devastating weaponry, none is more formidable than the BattleMech. These immense fighting machines, piloted by elite fighters known as MechWarriors, dominate the wars of the future with enough firepower to annihilate entire cities."

Together with the announcement, the developer released the first video, showing pre-alpha footage, and the first batch of screenshots. The game will release in 2018, with no platforms explicitly mentioned (but it's presumably PC).

Piranha Games President Russ Bullock also clarified during the livestream  that MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries will be a full game and a single purchase, with no microtransactions attached. It'll also be a fully dedicated single player game.

First we get a new reveal of Ace Combat 7, and then this. I'm gonna need new undewerar...