Brigador Killers devs say adding exit-from-mech play added five years

Mech games rarely let you leave the cockpit, and Brigador Killers answers the question PC Gamer asked: why, exactly, does it take so long? Lead designer Hugh Monahan and artist Jack Monahan joke that the seemingly simple feature request, “What if you could get out of the mech?” added five years of development time.

That headline number is doing real work. PC Gamer notes that Brigador Killers may look similar to the original Brigador with pre-rendered environments and an isometric perspective, but functionally it is a much bigger leap. The brothers frame it as the difference between comparing a shared perspective like an FPS versus a first-person immersive sim, with “you can talk to characters in this game” and far more interactions than vehicle-only play. In other words, leaving the mech is not a toggle. It is a systems rewrite, because humans and mechs do not just have different animations, they require different rules for the entire world.

Start with the basic mismatch: people and mechs are vastly different sizes. That size gap creates immediate gameplay and engineering headaches, like scaling interaction logic and building deeper systems for what happens when a player can walk up to objects, characters, and props. PC Gamer also highlights the balance problems that come with the durability and firepower gulf between mechs and infantry, plus the plain truth that this is hard to do without turning the world into a janky mess. The result: only a small set of titles PC Gamer has played really nail this. It cites Titanfall, the early access Psycho Patrol R, and the upcoming Brigador Killers as examples, while arguing Halo comes close with vehicles but does not count for the “Mech means legs, baby” framing.

Brigador Killers’ on-foot mechanics did not arrive ready-made. PC Gamer reports that it “took years to get down to adding the mechanics involved with running around as a human rather than driving only vehicles,” which the Monahans call “orders simpler” than on-foot play. That “human layer” is why the team is emphasizing story and world engagement. Jack Monahan’s point is straightforward: placing a character on the ground, and enabling talking with other characters, helps players who are “more driven by story.” If your game has you constantly piloting, you can get away with fewer world interactions. If you are walking, those interactions become the game’s oxygen.

The knock-on effects get bigger once you accept the new player fantasy. PC Gamer includes Hugh Monahan explaining that when you shoot a guy in a mech, it is “reasonable” to not be able to pick up a gun off the ground. But at an infantry level, it becomes “completely unacceptable” not to be able to pick up and drop guns. That single expectation changes inventory rules: now you need inventory. Now you need the logic of where the backpack is, and how to carry items. And once inventory exists, the world expands again. Hugh’s chain reaction continues: “Then I want to be able to drive a car. But a car should be able to fit into a flatbed.” This is the kind of second-order design tax that most players do not notice, but product teams should. Small feature promises become platform requirements.

It is also why on-foot interactions change the design surface area beyond loot. PC Gamer describes Jack Monahan pointing to the expectation of interacting with the environment: “I see this payphone, can I interact with the pay phone?” or talking to a guy walking next to you. He frames it as a shift in world expectations that are “completely different as a person on foot.” That is the hidden business logic inside the joke: adding exit-from-mech play forces the team to support a wider range of player desires, and that means more engineering, more UI and state management, and more content production just to keep interactions consistent.

This gets especially interesting when you consider Brigador Killers’ team and history. PC Gamer says Brigador was built by four people, “two coders,” then Hugh and Jack. Jack handled art and Hugh handled design, and the original plan “was going to kill us.” So they expanded “on the early id Software model,” and “almost everyone that works on the game originally came to it as a fan, as a modder.” That modder pipeline has upside, but PC Gamer adds a cost: modders built lots of maps and edits, and now they are “punished for it for eternity,” meaning they have to build more of it for the commercial game.

The payoff is not just technical ambition. Hugh Monahan is specifically aiming to satisfy fans who want more time in the world without “blowing it up.” He wants “cool scenes where you can walk around and get more of a picture of what it might be like to be in this place,” because that fantasy is a big part of enjoyment. PC Gamer also notes the game has more help this time: it received a substantial Steam update with added story content, quality of life improvements, and weapon descriptions, and players can wishlist Brigador Killers and check out its demo on Steam. For the original game catch-up, PC Gamer points readers to the earlier Brigador as well.

For executives and investors watching adjacent categories, Brigador Killers is a reminder that “small scope changes” in player perspective can metastasize into major capital and timeline commitments. The Monahans’ five-year estimate is basically a live benchmark for how feature-level promises can force product-level re-architecture: interactions, inventories, world rules, content depth, and player expectation management all expand together. If you are funding or governing a game studio, or any product where context switching between “modes” is promised, the question is not whether leaving the cockpit is cool. It is whether your organization can afford the systems you are implicitly signing up for.