MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries

A excellent mechwarrior game to snack on. Gets a bit too repetitive for longer sessions as mission variation is a bit lacking. Bought it with most of the DLC's which add more interesting content and some nice campaigns. Fantastic game to play on the Steam Deck (even if the some text is a bit small).

The Ally AI is painful to deal with, but late game it becomes unbearable.

are u fucking serious ive just spent the last hour inviting mxy friend to coop and he doesnt get the fucking invite no matter what i do

Very solid, well thought out controls, has a major learning curve but once you get the handle you can reliably kick ass. It does struggle to load mods, its possible, but just its slow.

Even though this is a well-made game, and I (can) enjoy it, I want to talk about its flaws that are annoying.

1) Small mechs are more effective than big ones.
I have 80-90 ton mechs, but I have been running many many missions on Firestarter. With light lasers, machine guns, and jump boosters, I do much more damage in a mission than any heavy mech. I complete missions faster.
In the old games of the series, attacking a heavy mech with a light one was suicide, like attacking a battleship with a light cruiser. Buying my first Battlemaster felt like winning the game.
Now.. I don't need anything except 35-ton small tin can. What the hell is such an improvement for?

2) Small weapons are better than big ones. Want to tear apart packs of heavy mechs? Forget about Heavy Lasers, 20th autocannons and PPC. ER S lasers in all points - and you're a god. Why someone still produce those big weapons?

3) And the mechanics of limiting the drop weight is absolute madness!
How I understand the limitation: My dropship can land 200 tons. If I want to be a cool mercenary, I'll buy a big dropship and land 500 tons.
How the game understands the limitation: The customer says: defeat my enemies, I'll pay a million. But don't bring your best mechs - or I'll fine you half a million. Result: I just do not use my biggest mechs. What the hell? What's going on in your heads, guys?

One of the few old style games left. It has a campaign against Computer opponents, a vast universe for you to explore by your self if you so desire, and it also offer co-op mode after you finish a certain number of missions. I'm not really into pvp as most people are either bad losers or bad winners.

Vanilla, it's a straight up 7/10 from a AA/B studio. The character models are stiff, customization is basic, mech choices include only the essentials, and the mission variety is lacking. . . But it still is a decent romp if you focus on the gameplay mechanics going from place to place as a stompy bot blowing sh*t up.

Adding the Yet Another Mech Lab mod makes this game into the godly mechsim/career sandbox wet dream that you always dreamed of if you are a mech fan.

If you are into 40k, think of this as an Imperial knight/titan simulator.

The game is great but it's almost nothing without mods and DLC. The story isn't that good and the free play mode is locked behind the Heroes of the Inner Sphere DLC, though your DLC is shared to your coop companions when hosting. Without mods customizations such as the engine you have, the armor, endoskeleton, and all the finer details are locked and weapons are restricted to a size system which determines what weapons you can put in a slot instead of the hard point system which is in MWO. With mods such as YAML it's a high quality stompy mech simulator that is unmatched by any other game. Get it on sale and have a blast tinkering with war machines and adding your own personal twist and style to them. Coop is ridiculously fun, especially in a 4 man group. Playing solo you have AI but it's not nearly as fun as having 4 people who have their own defined style of mech customization and approaches to different situations.

This game is great for old Battletech Fans like me.
With some mods it becomes even greater!

MW5 is the sort of game I would never have stopped to play in its default form, but once modded extensively - from interfaces through environments to various gameplay systems - with its cheesy music switched off and its boring generic campaign skipped straight to its career sandbox mode, it begins to look and feel like an immersive, somewhat-sim-like experience of yore.

TLDR; mod the living daylights of it or don't bother.

Get the Yet Another Mech Lab (YAML) mod, it improves the base game immencily

It is really satisfying to play and I read a book called Armada that inspired me to play this.

Great fun. Co-op career mode is ludicrously difficult though.

I went into this expecting a proper mech piloting simulator like MechWarrior 2, but turns out you can tweak the settings to make it more of a MechAssault kinda deal, which is more my vibe and.. well, it's fun for awhile, but it gets tedious

It looks and sounds great, and the gameplay is nice and flashy (often too much so.. my poor eyes), but it's pretty shallow and unimaginative. The story is a cookie cutter "yer dad died, go hunt down his killers" tripe but just like in Fable, after doing sidequests for roughly half a century of ingame time, you finally find yer dad's killers, and nobody except you's aged one bit.. although nobody plays mech games for the story, despite how much BattleTech nerds insist otherwise

As for the gameplay, the action's nice.. when there is some. You'll get dropped on one corner of the map and the NPC will tell you "here, I dropped you literally right next to the enemy base", but turns out said base if over 3km away, so off you go walking at a measly 40 km/h for 10-15 mins, with absolutely nothing happening on the way. Get there, kill a few mechs, raze a few buildings and boom, time to extract.. go walk right the fuck back at that one corner. Rinse and repeat for roughly 90 hours with little in the way of mission variety, and.. yeah, the previous games are much better

If they cut most of the idle time and *actually* dropped you next to where you need to be, the game would prolly be 15-20 hours long and kind of amazing but hey, that's the vanilla experience; apparently, most players play with mods and custom campaigns, and agree that the base game sucks

Well-made, just buy at least some of the DLC, especially heroes of the Inner Sphere. Great game, kind of a headache. You don't really need rear armor, I recommend stripping all your mechs of rear armor down to a 4 and then juice up your frontal armor, especially the torso areas. You'll be an armor boss, even with a light mech. For The Prince!

Good fun right here, even better with mods, but I had to mute the in-game dialogue because Ryana is so f*cking annoying, like nag nag nag nag nag stfu & end the mission already I'm outnumbered & losing LosTech here ffs.

I know nothing about BattleTech. But I do know this game is an absolute belter!

- Handles like tanks
- Could be considered a roguelite
- There's lots of customisation and a bit of fine tuning
- Multi-layered tactics (time, squad, mech management)

If you like tanks and the way they handle then you'll love this. They may be mechs but this isn't Armored Core, they handle literally like tanks. You tell them to go forward and back but there's no side-stepping, you rotate the top half. This game has a plot in the sense you're aiming for milestones... However, it's a big fucking galaxy and there's a lot of procedural missions on offer. You can gain and lose pretty much everything from cash, parts, entire mechs and/or their pilots. Your reputation with each of the factions provides many benefits from better mission rewards to discounts so it pays to be friendly with specific factions when the most basic and lightweight mechs are 2,000,000 a pop.

You can't run at an enemy guns blazing and expecting to win unless your mech far outclasses them. You got to turn your feet and torso in separate directions to strafe and avoid damage. Your torso rotates about 90* max and it's important to understand because it essentially gives every single mech a blind spot. By 90 I mean you can rotate 90 in either direction but not all the way round to the back. So unlike tanks you can't take advantage of back armour.

There's lots of parts to your mech and the number/strength of these vary from mech to mech. There's several ways to instantly destroy a mech but most of them are hard. Taking out the core is normally the easiest except for the fact it's the most heavily armoured part. Heads are incredibly brittle and incredibly hard to hit. Taking out a leg disables it but if you take out both you destroy it. Same goes for weapon systems, take them all out and the pilot ejects.

Everything has weight. Your mech, guns, ammo, armour/HP. Some mechs move faster than others, some have better base HP. Whether you decide to add extra weight to the fast ones or less weight on the beefy ones is up to you. And yes, ammo has weight. In-fact you can't fire a weapon unless you use some of that weight for ammo (except for lasers). You can add more to your mech and try to beat enemies with sustained fire but bare in mind ammo is explosive so if you think you're smart jamming it into your mech's head, it has a percentage chance of exploding on hit. Probably more so if you overheat.

Yes heat management is a thing. Everything you do generates heat from moving, shooting, flying and especially taking damage. You can use some of your spare weight to jam some extra heat sinks into the mech and this is essential on bigger mechs. Failing to manage heat will result in your mech catching fire or completely shutting down and further heat damage during this time will probably cause instant death to the mech and the pilot.

So yeah, Mechwarrior is the OG mech simulation game, has been around for about 30 years and is based on a tabletop franchise known as BattleTech. And none of that matters if you're just looking for some tactical tank-like mecha action.

In the first four hours i have had more fun on a game than i have in a long while i am now thinking about getting a force feedback joystick and a throttle to make it fell more legit curently my favorite game

Important:
I am reviewing this with no DLC installed. If there are major balance issues that are fixed with DLC, heck by all means throw your money at the problem. I believe that you shouldn't need DLC to fix major balance and gameplay problems...

Small bit of background... I am a long time fan of the FASA games (Mechcommander Gold and Mechwarrior 3) and the Battletech lore and novels.

What I like is the overworld - flying from system to system, taking on jobs for various factions, managing my mechs, team, and equipment, and trying to pay the bills. There's a ton of thought and love put into the star map and it actually changes as the years go by.

The number and variations of mechs is great. As the years march forward, even more mechs appear. You can even get unique mechs that have some basis in the Battletech books or lore.

I appreciate the developers not including in mission repair bays and instant repairs between missions in operations. If a mission is balanced around requiring repair bays, it should be split into two missions in one operation. Repairs should take time, and you don't have time on the battlefield, so the best you should be able to do is field mechs from a drop ship.

But that's about it for things I like... what I don't like:

Gameplay features removed from previous games like mechs getting knocked over, crouching, pip zoom for long range combat, passive sensor mechanics (stealth movement), coolant mechanics for a quick relief if your mech is overheating.

There isn't a healthy environment for strategy and creativity here because the objectives, map, and enemies are procedurally generated instead of crafted.

Missions have random enemy spawns with huge power fluctuations which make it feel super imbalanced. Sometimes I'll just be fighting wave after wave of helicopters and vehicles which are easy fragile targets. Other times a ship will appear and drop 4 assault mechs directly on my position. At least the enemy dropship apparently has no weapons.

While there technically are too many possible missions that you will never see the same exact mission twice, from an objectives standpoint there really are only four distinct feeling missions. In the end every mission feels like instant action once you launch. Even the *campaign missions* have an assigned mission type.

1. Raid: Go to N locations and destroy some random building.
2. Assassination: Go to 4 locations and kill some pilots.
3. Defense/Warzone: Stop structures from getting demolished, or kill minimum number of enemies then get out. - Defense and Warzone are very similar so I am counting them the same. Basically defense ends automatically but with warzone you may continue, which I never do because my time is better spent starting another contract.
4. Demolition: Go to one location and demolish structures. Which brings me to the next issue I have...

Demolition contracts are absolutely the worst. Demolishing structures takes FOREVER. There is no way to eliminate the OpsFor and safely complete the objective because they have infinite tonnage of absolutely pristine mechs to throw at you, like they were expecting you! Sometimes they will field endless lances of light mechs, other times you will get endless assault mechs dropped on your head. I have the best luck when I just knock off threatening limbs and then ignore enemies to stop the next lance from dropping in. But my lancemates will eventually kill them and a new wave will spawn in. Ignore these missions, because they are in no way worth it.

Maps are built on a tile system and as a result don't feel lived in. There aren't roads between landmarks.
Salvage is scattered around the map without much logic and usually only has a single lonely turret protecting it, so really it is a matter of whether you want to spend time to hunt it down (don't).

In some mission types, when you complete the objective you have to reach your dropship for extraction. Just like everything else, the extraction point is randomized. It really sucks when it ends up literally on top of the OpsFor's position and my force is already beaten the hell up. Like what kind of asshole aerospace jockey is flying my ship anyways? Why can't I fire them?

Teammate commands are super limited: form on me, attack my target, or go to a location and stand still there, and hold fire/weapons free. My teammates SUCK at making their own combat choices. Like I'll equip a pilot with maxed out stats long range missiles and he'll run in to short range where his weapons are completely useless instead of carpet bombing from afar.

Overall, it breaks my heart to say that I cannot recommend this game, at least not without DLC or mods to address these issues.

Do not buy if you plan on playing HOSAS/HOTAS. It is virtually unsupported. I spent an hour trying to get the both joystick axis working, didnt even get to the buttons, and bailed. Trash.

This game is a love letter to the first Mechwarrior. It is solid, though I'm not sure if there is a story buried somewhere in here. As a sandbox game it is outstanding.

Where is my Timberwolf and Mad Dog DLC. just slap it in there. it will be the cherry on top.

Stays true to the original Mechwarrior franchise games with updated graphics and controls. Fun blend of loose story with sandbox style play.

Very rough around the edges and has some crude design choices that could have been avoided with a more experienced studio at the helm, but Microsoft is going to Microsoft. They're more concerned with marketshare than quality.

This said, MW5:M, developed by Piranha Games isn't the best mech sim title out there, but it's a decent enough entry that it shouldn't be overlooked - for the right price. (Hey, goes on sale at least 4 times a year)

Own it on PS5 (Jumpship edition) and just purchsed it on Steam + all the DLC. Got the platinum on PS5 and played it for over 400hrs, so don't let the play timer on this review fool you. (That also means playing it with no mods!)

The game features a campaign with a sandbox styled approach. You play as a Mercenary Force leader and go about the galaxy running contracts for cash and fame while unraveling the mystery surrounding your father's demise at the start of the game. Not the most compelling narrative, but gets the job done.

You'll have the freedom to move around the galaxy and run missions for several prominent (and not so prominent) factions to earn the currency needed to acquire an arsenal of mechs, weapons and pay the bills.

The game also features a later-added customization set of sliders that will allow you to tailor the sandbox experience to your needs, from adjusting how accurate enemies are, how much damage they can do, giving your team infinite ammo, increased heat dissipation for your weapons, and more. The game's default settings were very rough, so this new addition allows players to have more control over the experience.

Chronologically, the game takes place prior to the Clan invasion storyline, which they left for the successor game that released last year, Mechwarrior 5: Clans. The Mercenaries entry stops just short of that, so features mechs and weapons running up to that point, but not after. (No IE: Mad Cat, yet)

Gameplay is fairly basic. You'll enter a map with specific objectives, then command your 'lance' of up to 4 mechs into the fray, then extract, repair, restock, and look for the next job.

Mechs can take damage to their body parts, and can have said parts destroyed. Destroyed body parts also means destroyed weapons that were mounted on said body parts, which can be frustrating as totally destroyed weapons and modules cannot be repaired an have to be wholly replaced. (The difficulty sliders alleviate this, if you desire to tweak 'em in your favor)

You can also instakill enemy mechs by blowing up the heads, where the pilot resides, or blowing up the chest, where the big, explodey generator resides. Break a mechs legs will see it start to limp and drastically slow down. Blowing off arms can result in your enemies losing weapons, and vice versa.

Destroyed enemy, especially those taken out with a headshot, have a chance to be salvaged after a bttle as well, assisting in players wants of collecting certain mechs, or just amassing an army of powerful or speedy mechs.

The game does not feature PVP (though there is friendly fire), and does have PVE co-op, but how they structure it is upsetting to most. The host can set up their mechbay with up for four mechs, and they can invite other players in to play, who will then pilot one of the mechs in the host's arsenal. Clients that join a host do not get any other kind of credit or progression, however. They're purely there to help the host, though Mods, which this game supports, can remedy some of that by allowing cash to be earned by clients on their own saves.

It's not the perfect setup of allowing each player to utilize their own acquired arsenal to join a host as a guest mercenary, which would have been great, and to my knowledge there isn't a mod yet that does this.

There is also the option to play instant action co-op missions, which can be copy paste story missions, or can be individualized setups based on the mission types, such as demolition, assassination, etc, and this mode isn't tied to a save or save progress in terms of arsenal. Instead, instant action lets each player pick any mech available and gear them how they see fit before deployment. Basically no risk, no reward, and just playing for fun factor without fear of losing favored mechs/weapons in the process.

By default the game uses sim-like 'tank controls', but allows this to be turned off (only for your character) and will allow your mech to be controlled like a standard humanoid is typically controlled in a first person/third person game, so if the tank controls are not your thing, you can just turn it off at any time. (The AI will still use it, and thus may circle around and not be as snappy in response time as you can be, meaning you have the unfair advantage then)

Some weapons do not use ammunition, and instead work on an overheating sort of setup, while other weapons use ammo that you have to install within your mech's interior from the mechbay customization screen. These weapons and gear/ammo take up weight on the mech, and cannot exceed the total weight allowance for the mech or they won't be able to launch. You can also just toggle on infinite ammo and then only need to carry at least one ammo item per weapon that needs it and can make due with less 'maintenance'.

The game's soundtrack is also pretty damned awesome, courtesy of Sean Kolton. Music included in the jumbo edition of the game.

Overall, it's rough around the edges but i'd give it a 7/10. For mech fans, it's a must have title, and is one of the VERY, VERY FEW mech games out there with co-op. (Screw you, Bamco, for refusing to put PVE co-op in Armored Core 6)

Definitely worth it when the price drops during a sale (such as right now). Has issues working with the PS5 dualsense controller, which they refused to support natively, so you have to use steaminputs to get it to work correctly.

Unfortunately the game does NOT feature any kind of matchmaking lobby. Even though it has cross play with console. Real stupid decision. So that means you're probably using discord to hunt for other people to play with and are inviting/joinining from there. If you do want PVP, you can play Mechwarrior Online, which is free to play and is only PVP.

Overall it's not a great game, but the sandbox (heavily modded) is worth it if you're a "giant fighting robots" fan. There's still nothing quite like Mechwarrior and while it's far from perfect, it's enough.

AI is atrocious, which in a tactically oriented "how you use your mech matters" game is almost inexcusable. At some point in the game you simply overcome the enemy with weight and tech, but early-to-mid game you will have a LOT of BS missions. Thankfully the auto save system is generous. If all lancemates are human this becomes much less of an issue.

Single player is fine I guess but co-op sandbox is where it shines. Install mods, lots of mods. Start with Yet Another Mech Lab and go from there. There is a TON of QoL the devs just apparently don't give two craps about not to mention a whole host of really cool changes making it feel way more immersive.

It's hard to whiff "fighting giant death machines, the game" and despite what sometimes seems like intentionality to do so that's what you get. It's a vibe for sure; these are chunky mechs and not lithe Armored Core variants so tactics are determined by positioning and not twitch reaction. But dang if firing a howitzer into a walking city block a'int satisfying.

Base game is fine for $30 but DLCs are absolutely bonkers at $15; you get 10x their content from free mods. If you are worried about DLC FOMO I suggest Call to Arms so you get melee.

Easily the best mech sim(lite) in history after you install top mods from the incredibly community. Highly recommend, but be aware that playing without mods may be somewhat underwhelming.

dunno what people are talking about, game works flawlessly.

Mods are good, but don't support YAML, guy who made it's an asshole.

DLC's a little overpriced, and the Solaris expansion has been known to cause fatal errors while paired with certain mods.

The engine was and still is great. This feels like the ideal MW experience.

The only neg is that the missions can be a little repetitive. The sandbox was built but underdeveloped a little bit. You have a lot of the neat MW things like airstrikes, anti missile, things that can increase (or decrease) detection and lock-on, weather effects and visibility, cityscapes and open terrain, most (but not enough) of the familiar mechs and weapon systems.

The factions/story/characters feel a little muted too but if you just want to get in a mech and attack this is it. Who knows when there will be better -- it would have to be a pretty big leap in tech.

Get in mech >>> Attack >>> Get paid

It's a simple life and a good one.

my favorite mechwarrior game. very open for you to do what you want until you get drafted into an intergalactic space war at the most inconvenient time.

I had all but forgotten about Mechwarrior games, Boy did it bring back my love for big stompy. Get on sale with the DLC then mod the hell out of the game.

I know I'm years too late to this but whatever. As someone who has played every Mechwarrior game since number 2, I wanted to chime in my thoughts. I recommend this game with some pretty big caveats. The main one being the later rep levels are just too damn hard. I get that this game should have pressure, you're a merc company, it shouldn't be easy to just build up metric tons of C-bills and cakewalk every mission. However, at later rep levels you just have to take on way too many enemies with no opportunity to re-arm or repair in anyway and your AI lancemates are just not up to the task. I did manage to complete the main story campaign and it was fine. The big reveal at the end is lame for anyone who has any cursory knowledge of Battletech lore. I really wish they had gone a different route and tried to have the drama be around something I didn't see coming a mile away. I was really enjoying the game up until the point where it just became Steiner scout lance every mission and watch your repair bills go through the roof as you have to take on like 10-20 enemy mechs. My Atlas mechs are tough, not invincible. Keeping the tonnage limits more to the 340-360 range would have been a much smarter idea in my opinion with only the occasional 400. Anyway, it all is what it is at this point.

End of the day, the game was a lot more fun at lower rep levels. Story campaign was fine. I thought about continuing after the campaign but gave it up when it became clear missions were just going to be a slog and repair bills would eat up all my profits.

10/10, would send a Grasshopper to the stratosphere again.

I have been a battle tech enthusiest for 35 years. I have read several (not all books) I have the table top game many resource books and the table top RPG. So I am biased but its because the lore. If you are into mech type things/gaming at all this is a must play. If you are not familiar with the Battletech universe, I recommend the Blood of Kerensky Trilogy. Read it and fall in love with the Battle tech universe, then play out your Battletech fantasy here.

Its pretty, its fun, and what I love is you play a quick game or play for hours.

Could I nitpick all the flaws. Sure. There are flaws with this game but there are few if any, none that I can think of that do not have some flaw. I have played unmodded and modded. I like both. If you are not into modified games there is still LOTS and LOTS of enjoyment here. If you want mods...then pick your poison because it seems its out there.

If you are a Battletech fan and have not played this game about the only reasonable excuse is lack of material or physical resources, beyond that in my opinion you SHOULD buy this game and play it.

An excellent successor to MW4 Mercenaries! The modding scene did an excellent job as well. If you like stomping around in giant robots, this game is for you.

I've always loved the Battletech games all the way back to the table top versions. This is a great game in the series. I only wish you could command bigger groups.

I remember playing MechWarrior 3 & watching Gundam cartoons as a kid and thinking "OHHH MY GOD!!!! THIS IS WHAT THE FUTURE GONNA LOOK LIKE"!!! Now, in the modern digital age, where we have actual UAV's & remote drones, which can be operated from the other side of the f-king planet, I find this game takes a lot more suspension of disbelief than when I was young...

Nerd rant over. If you're into the giant fightin' robots subculture, buy this on extreme discount. It gets kinda same-y pretty fast. I'll pick it up now and again, play a few missions, then put it back down for a while, rinse, repeat. Sort of how I treat Call of Doody games. Sometimes I just feel like fightin' sum jiant rowbotz, or need an excuse to exercise my HOTAS.

Wait for Christmas level discounts, because they cut a bunch of content and try to re-sell it as the "heroes of the inner circle" DLC.

Really enjoyed the game... missions do tend to get boring after some time, but still really fun configuring and trying different loadouts.

The DLC's really add the some nice distractions and bit of depth that gives this life.

Overall, no matter what.. ITS MECHWARRIOR!!!!

The fact we have a new mechwarrior after many many years, I will take it without complaints.. only hope it continues to grow and expand!!

This game is one of the best games I ever played, you run a merc company fulfilling contracts across the universe, negotiating payment, salvage, insurance. Managing your bank accounts, repairs, equipment. Potentially losing entire mechs in unrecoverable or astonishingly expensive repairs. Difficulty customization to have all the challenge you want or skip stuff you deem too annoying AND you can run around with friends AND theres a billion mods to add more content. Its damn near the perfect mech game in my opinion. If this game had a mmo aspect with other vehicles available and was set in the armored core universe it would be. But for now, this is as close to perfection as we'll get. In my opinion.

With the help of mods through the Steam Workshop, this game is worth endless hours of fun

Excellent game if you like big robots, or are a fan of battletech.

Excellent game. Great mech customization. Missions can be a bit repetitive, but it definitely scratches that “running a mech merc company” itch like only Mechwarrior can.

I have always liked MS Mechwarrier 30 years ago, this game is one of the best recreation of that game. Much greater detail and awesome graphics.

An amazing game for any fans of the MechWarrior series. The graphics are incredible, the controls are easy to get used to, and the game itself is outstanding. Have had a few crashes, but still, it's such a good game.

fuck this game. worked for 20 hours, now it refuses to connect to online services rendering coop useless.

The game is fun, but even with a very high powered PC it regularly causes total system crashes. Any time the game crashes you're just about guaranteed to need a full system reboot.

In a nutshell, about half your time sunk in to the game is going to be from game management. Horribly optimized. However, if you can keep it working for long periods of time, you will find yourself addicted to the game's natural cycle.

Not quite the mechwarrior we wanted, but its the mechwarrior we have : / Prefer this to M5: Clans, even. DLC seems to be really hit or miss from reviews so I've skipped nearly all of them, sales never get better than 50% off so that will continue. Welcome to modern gaming : (

I'm not a fan of what PGI has done with the license, but again its all we've got.

Very good game. Alright story, Great gameplay, Good graphics. If you like mechs you will probably like this!

The difficulty progression is perfect. The tech tree for acquiring and upgrading mechs is very good. There are a number of mission types, and the terrain is varied, so the tactics change. I find myself saying "Just one more battle" after I've already played for hours.

This is the best combat game I've bought in a long while.

Mechwarrior 5 Mercs, what to say about it. Well given it's the only Modern Mechwarrior besides Mechwarrior 5 Clans it's about the best we have these days to pilot stompy robots in the Battletech Universe. It is an okay game out of the box. Runs well on about anything. Good on the Steam Deck as well. But a lot is lacking. The main story isn't good and even is a bit brow-raising for those who know the lore. It is generally worth skipping the story and just doing the free-form Career mode. So doing do that, how does the base game hold up. It's alright. The Mechs generally feel good to pilot it's fun to drive them around. But the Mechlab is lacking due to its restrictive nature of it. Then you'll run into the biggest issue of the game I'd say. The friendly AI. They are as smart as a sack of rocks. They will do about everything to get themselves killed. Unless you know how they work and can baby proof a mech for them to use. So that's why I think this game is best played with friends. Even base with icky Mechlab. You'll have a good time. And only the Host needs all the DLC. Which some of the DLC are good others aren't but it's worth for all the mech variants. Now, where I think the game truly shines is by modding it. Most mods you'll ever need are on the Steam Workshop so it makes installing everything pretty easy. Though to fully use the main mod most folks use. Yet Another Mechlab. You will need Bobbarts Mod Options which you have to yoink off of Nexus mods. But really only takes about 10 min if that to get a baseline modded game that great. Though playing with friends is still preferred. But some of the AI mods are decent. So if you're a new comer to Battletech this might be perfect for you. A fan of the classic Mechwarriors gonna be a bit lacking but still fun with friends.

Edit: Always willing to admit when I'm wrong, I'll just put this retraction first. You'll see me say later that there's not alot of DLC content for the price. Immediately thereafter I got sucked into a DLC campaign that's only halfway done after ten hours and let's me alter the political landscape for the entire map broadly and directly. It's also grueling. That's all pretty cool. Worth the money.

I'm going to start this review with a general statement about the Battletech setting. There are very few games set in this world and they all have one thing in common: modding makes them amazing. Vanilla Battletech, while a great game in itself, definitely feels incomplete without Roguetech or BTA. This game, equally good with all its DLCs, is also incomplete without the YAML suite of mods. I don't know what it is about the setting but these games can only reach their full potential with modding.

That aside, if you're checking out the reviews then I bet you're the sort that thinks shooting an Urbie in the face is good, clean fun. You will not be disappointed. The combat in this game is by turns gratifyingly chaotic and deeply tactical. The saying "no plan survives contact with the enemy" was coined just for this. Debut a powerful missile boat for your back line and be prepared for the enemy to sacrifice its fast lights to take it out. Enter a battle with the "perfect" lance load-out and get ready to find out you're wrong. Tear through the enemy and overextend yourself without backup and the enemy will suddenly focus on head-shotting you before help can arrive. And they can do it too, because...

One of the things that there is to really love about this game is that every mech is dangerous and there is no period of forced obsolescence. True, there are bad mechs and poor load-outs, but a laser-armed Flea in your blind spot can be just as deadly as the Victor in front of you. At thirty-four hours into a career, my starting mechs are still very much in play and important to my overall strategy. I really appreciate that this game does not force you to replace your hangar to advance, allowing you to properly invest in mechs instead of limping them along until it's time to sell. That's properly immersive.

The optimization is solid and everything is very smooth and the visuals are fantastic. Everything looks and behaves exactly like what you'd expect when a few hundred thousand kilos of walking bad attitudes wage war with a generous amount of subtle details to add to the experience. The technicals are definitely the most complete part of the game right out of the box.

Except for the pathfinding AI. This is my major gripe with this game. It's not consistently bad, but even with the TT AI mod it can have fits of glaring stupidity. I've more than once doubled back with 3/4th's of my lance because one mech can't find the clear path just meters away. Your lance mates can also steadfastly refuse to use jump jets while travelling, running around ridges that they could simply jump off. None of this is much of a problem as long as you expect the occasional pathfinding issue but it will still delay you in a few battles.

Not that it isn't worth it at full price but getting this on sale is probably best. I hate to always take money out of a dev's pocket by recommending that but the DLC's, while interesting and adding good content, aren't expansive. Get it either way though.

So how long ago did you stop reading because you can't stop thinking about coring an Urbanmech?