June is here, and Microsoft is once again upending its big bag of video games over its buckets marked Xbox Game Pass on console and PC, with this month's freshly tumbled treats including Kingdom Hearts HD on Xbox One and BattleTech on PC.

Starting tomorrow, 11th June, Xbox One Game Pass will expand to include two preposterously titled Kingdom Hearts collections of Disney-themed RPG action; first up is Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 & 2.5 ReMix - which features HD spruce-ups of (brace yourselves) Kingdom Hearts Final Mix, Re:Chain of Memories, 358/2 Days, Birth by Sleep Final Mix, and Re:Coded.

That's accompanied by Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue, offering up Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance HD, Kingdom Hearts 0.2: Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage, and Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover. Which is to say you're in for a lot of Kingdom Hearts, even if there's no chance you'll ever remember exactly what any of them are called.

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Humble has announced that Battletech will be the sole early unlock title in the upcoming October Monthly Bundle.

Sign up now and you can get immediate access to the modern spin on turn-based tactical mech combat from Harebrained Schemes for just 10. That's a considerable saving compared to the 34.99 you'd have to pay on Steam right now. It's also an excellent price for a game Richie called "a compelling fusion of tabletop manoeuvring and characterful campaign progression" in Eurogamer's Recommended review.

I mean, who doesn't enjoy giant smashy mech battles, anyway?

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Paradox Interactive has acquired Harebrained Schemes, the developer behind BattleTech and Shadowrun Returns, for $7.5 million USD, plus a portion of Harebrained's earnings over the next five years.

Harebrained was founded in 2011 by Mitch Gitelman and Jordan Weisman (co-creator of the BattleTech and MechWarrior universe), and most recently released a new, critically acclaimed, BattleTech game, for which Paradox served as publisher.

In a post explaining the acquisition on Paradox's forums, Harebrained said that the both parties "have a shared vision for where to take narrative rich tactical games", and that the arrangement comes as a result of "the excellent experience both companies have had while working together on BattleTech. Everybody believes this is a great fit".

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For a tabletop strategy as revered as BattleTech, it's remarkable that it's taken this long - close to 35 years, by crikey - for a dedicated turn-based video game to emerge. Okay, sure, Westwood's early brace of proto-Dune strategy RPGs came pretty close to transposing the heraldry of wargaming's premier trouser-tank battle system, but it's unfortunate that in the years since, BattleTech has become synonymous with - and subordinate to - the MechWarrior first-person action simulations of the 90s. For strategy fans to have been denied an authentic BattleTech experience for so long is almost as tragic as Robot Jox's continued obscurity relative to the success of Pacific Rim.

Still, although it was deemed necessary that some patient fans put their hands in their pockets first, the fact that we now have BattleTech on PC adds weight to the old adage that good things come to those who wait. For a game that has had to make up for lost time and maintain a level of faithfulness, all while attempting to impose some authority on modern genre champions like the XCOM series, developer Harebrained Schemes has more than enough reason to be proud. This BattleTech is as authentic a recreation of the tabletop classic as you could hope for.

Not that this slavishly follows the rules first laid down in 1984; more that it remains true to the spirit of the source material. Admittedly it's been decades since I laid eyes on one of FASA's old Technical Readouts, thus I'd be hard pressed to judge the game's adherence to scripture. However, the essence of BattleTech's techno-feudal aesthetic, together with allowing players to dive into its expansive lore to a depth that suits them, is largely what makes this interactive edition a success.

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Battletech launches on 24th April 2018, publisher Paradox has announced.

The turn-based tactical mech combat PC game is developed by Harebrained Schemes, the studio behind the Shadowrun Returns series. Harebrained Schemes raised an impressive $2.8m on Kickstarter from just over 41,000 backers back in November 2015. Two-and-a-half years later, Battletech is nearly ready for launch.

Here's the official blurb:

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