Sign in

Private company

Infinite Game Publishing

Wargaming and military science fiction franchise

BattleTech is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, which was in turn acquired by Topps in 2003; and published since 2007 by Catalyst Game Labs. The trademark is currently owned by Topps and, for video games, Microsoft Gaming; Catalyst Game Studios licenses the franchise from Topps.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

  • Industryvideo game industry1

See how the biggest companies compare on our leaderboards

BattleTech is a wargaming and military science fiction franchise launched by FASA Corporation in 1984, acquired by WizKids in 2001, which was in turn acquired by Topps in 2003; and published since 2007 by Catalyst Game Labs. The trademark is currently owned by Topps and, for video games, Microsoft Gaming; Catalyst Game Studios licenses the franchise from Topps.2

How it started

Conception

Chicago-based FASA Corporation's original 1984 game focused on enormous robotic, semi-humanoid battle machines battling in a science-fiction feudalistic Dark Age setting. The game was at first called Battledroids. The name of the game was changed to BattleTech in the second edition because George Lucas and Lucasfilm claimed the rights to the term "droid"; the machines themselves were renamed BattleMechs from the second edition onward.

The game components included:

First edition: two full-color terrain maps, 48 stand-up BattleMech counters, four sheets of playing markers, plastic counter stands, dice, and a rule book.

Third edition: two color maps, a pack of record sheets, and fourteen 2" plastic miniatures of various BattleMech war machines.

Fourth edition: two rule-books, a booklet of record sheets, 48 stand-up playing pieces, and a sheet of 144 insignia stickers.

From Wikipedia’s article on Infinite Game Publishing, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

  1. 1
  2. 2