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This list was repeatedly updated over time as the legal situation (or how it was perceived) changed. When they first announced the settlement, FASA also provided an initial list of Unseen designs.

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This included some designs that had not been covered in the court case, but shared the same background as the contested ones, but also unrelated third-party artwork to which FASA did have full rights.

Miniature molds had to be destroyed as well.īeyond the specific artwork covered in the Unseen lawsuits and settlement, FASA decided to summarily treat all designs as Unseen that had been developed out-of-house on general principle as a precaution. All existing products featuring pictures of the Unseen, be it on the cover or within the rulebooks-effectively most if not all BattleTech publications-had to be discontinued, and while numerous other original designs remained that could still be depicted, this massively affected the BattleTech line. This affected many core designs which have been described as the bedrock of the BattleTech universe at the time, and thus was a serious blow to FASA. The lawsuits were settled out of court in 1996.Īs part of the settlement agreement, which included a nondisclosure agreement, FASA forfeited the right to use the images in question henceforth. However, this was ultimately never decided in court.

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These mecha then served as the visual representation of several BattleMechs and other units within the BattleTech universe, with BattleTech-specific names and game stats devised entirely by FASA and totally unrelated to the context of the original mecha.ĭuring a series of lawsuits FASA later found out that TCI might not have been in a legal position to provide these rights to FASA in the first place. When FASA created the Battledroids board game in 1984 that would become BattleTech, the designers licensed the rights from Twentieth Century Imports (TCI) to use certain preexisting mecha from the Japanese anime series The Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Fang of the Sun Dougram and Crusher Joe. Unseen Main article: Unseen lawsuits Background Since then, various products have appeared featuring new yet recognizable artwork for the classic Unseen. In 2015 Catalyst Game Labs (the current licensee) announced that they had opted for a proper retcon, and that new art would be published to retroactively supplant the Unseen designs and put the issue to rest for good. Although the units that they represent continue to exist within the canon lore of the fictional BattleTech universe as such, their original visual artwork is not used anymore in print (or electronic) products or as miniature sculpts. The use of these so-called Unseen images in a BattleTech context was discontinued.

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The word refers to certain real-world imagery, namely the visual appearance (artwork) of a number of iconic BattleMechs plus a handful of other units, that BattleTech producer FASA agreed to not use forthwith. The 'Unseen' issue arose in 1996, in the wake of a series of lawsuits.