Mechwarrior 5 was released on the Epic Games store over a year ago... and as a point of pride (and unwillingness to have too many place for my games to reside...), I'm a loyal Steam fanboy since the Half-Life days when it was released as a glorified DRM. So, I figured, I would just wait and let all the Epic Store gamers beta test the game until it was ready for the non-exclusive release. I know that Epic needs the exclusives to try and get a bit of market share and recognition away from the Steam monopoly... but I REALLY REALLY HATE exclusives as that is really a terrible lock-in practice that should stay on consoles and not infect the PC gaming ecosystem!

Anyway, it has been a long time since the last true MechWarrior game on PC... I think I was still in university, and the franchise has long been a huge favourite of mine. BattleTech, and more importantly RogueTech have gone a long way to scratching stompy Mech desire... but I've been missing that first-person perspective on piloting a bipedal tool of destruction. Along comes MechWarrior 5, released in 2019 by Piranha Games... is it a worthy successor? Can it live up to the rose-tinted recollections of an elder gamer?

The Setup

... lots of reviews have mentioned this, and I have to agree... the setup story is poop. It is laid out in a long cutscene... you are the son of a respected mercenary company commander, and it is solely due to your arrogance and greed that your father dies whilst ensuring your survival. Somehow, this player character feels NO remorse... and gets back to work reconstructing a new merc unit from scratch... hellbent on revenge against the "evil" mercenaries who killed his father.

... but your father wouldn't have died if you hadn't been so keen about looting unguarded treasure?!??!!?!? Let me just say that the player character is not very relatable to me... plus, the rest of your crew just shrug off the death of your father, and don't seem too overly bothered by the undeniable fact that your greed was the root cause of his death.

So, basically a chance to start again with a new underpowered merc unit with no reputation or money... without any thought about how weak the narrative is.... but we aren't here for the story (that would have been nice though..), we are here for the stompy stompy, pew pew!

The Game

I will just quickly take a moment to gripe about the dropship hanger area. The whole hanger area is a way to run around from computer terminal to NPC in order to "interact" with them. Honestly, this could all have been replaced with menus with videos or something like that... there isn't anything added by making the player run around in a FPS view in a restricted space just to spit up another menu/cutscene after interacting with a static environment.

Sure, it is nice to see your Mechs being worked on... but it wears off after the first time!

From the starmap (which covers the 3025 Inner Sphere, no Clan invasion yet!), you are free to travel into and out of contested star systems and "peaceful" systems. Industrial hubs that are at peace offer bonuses to repairs in addition to offering new pilots for hire, and rarer equipment and Mechs to purchase. However, when you are in a war zone, you often can't afford the time to jump away just for repairs... so you will undertake a number of missions and repairs in the war zone at a penalty. Still, the penalty isn't that bad... and you will quickly find that you are overflowing with a C-Bill surplus.

There are the story missions and set missions, which will often offer a binary choice in how you want your company to develop from a story point of view. These will consist of choosing a side in particular conflict, and in the story-line missions... these essentially involve choosing between a "moral" choice or a "pragmatic" choice.

Meanwhile, there are also the endless procedurally generated missions... which all boil down to get somewhere, and attack and defend a position by killing enough enemies... and then heading for extraction whilst enemy reinforcements keep spawning over time. You can stick around for the extra salvage and loot, but you have to stay alive in order to collect!

Every mission starts off with a pretty cool shot of your lance heading into battle... it is a classic pose shot, or a disembarkment cutscene from the the dropship... both are pretty damn cool, and I haven't tired of it yet! The only thing that would be better would be a hot drop from space in pods!

As I had mentioned before, every mission does boil down to the kill enough enemies to complete... or some variation of it. Well, that isn't too bad... after all, there is only so much a huge metal Mech can actually do! Thankfully, there isn't any escort missions...

Each Mech has a uniquely designed cockpit and outlook from the inside. Take for instance this unique modified Hunchback which is armed with an incredibly rare (for the time) Gauss Rifle. Now, the Hunchback in all it's variations fields a huge weapon on the right shoulder (in this case, the GR)... and it is great to see how that completely obscures the view from the right side of the cockpit!

I have seen other reviews from newcomers to the Mech genre complain that the control scheme is too confusing and complicated. Basically, you have two different controls for the top half of your Mech , and another for the leg portion. However, this is the original control scheme for the MechWarrior series... and for me, it came back as quickly as riding a bike! It is elegant and I would suggest that those who don't understand it should take the time to learn it before criticising! Again, you are piloting a huge Mech!... it's not a run and gun shooter!

There is so much nostalgia that returns with the game... like the crazy end of mission run to the dropship to be extracted whilst you are dodging incoming fire! Plus, the dropship sends out some pretty hefty covering fire... it is awesome!

A mercenary game wouldn't be a mercenary game without some light management and salvage aspects. The economy is a bit out of whack though.. I found that I was constantly swimming in C-Bills!

The salvage is quite dependent on the enemies that you take out... and the manner in which you take them out! If you are able to surgically take off an opponent's head (and thus, the pilot) you will have a pretty prize in the form an intact Mech! However, if you shred the Mech and light up the fusion core... there will be a pretty explosion... but not much left!

How much salvage you get at the end of each mission will depend on the negotiation of the contract before the start of the mission. The negotiation is quite simply abstracted... you have a number of points to spend depending on your reputation and your alignment with the employer, and those you can spend to upgrade the pay, salvage or damage insurance.

Ahhhhh... there is nothing better than seeing your Mechs in the bays... getting spruced up for the next fight! Your dropship can field up to 12 Mechs, of which 4 can be deployed on a single mission... I was wondering what was the purpose of having more than the deployable 4 in your arsenal... but that becomes clearer later in the game, when you are tasked with chained multiple missions. You can't repair between these missions, so you will want to have some depth in your roster of Mechs and pilots in order to deploy a viable team for each section!

Unfortunately, the Mech builder part of the game is also incredibly simplified... you have a limited number and type of hardpoints in the basic view. Each weapon comes in 5 different tiers, with incremental improvements in rate of fire, damage, range and heat output depending on the quality of the component. They also come in small, medium and large types (as well weapon style) which match against the hardpoint types that are available for the Mech to mount.

The "detailed" mode of the Mech builder uncovers the ability to change the armour distribution and heat sinks (plus additional special components), but very little else. It is disappointing that there isn't any way to customise your Mechs more heavily.... but it is important that we are actually dealing with the pre-OmniMech technology that arrived with the Clan invasion... so, Mechs were very hard to customise in the field without a complete factory overhaul on a specialised industrial world.

Visuals, Sound and Performance

The game runs smoothly on the review hardware (XMG Fusion 15 gaming laptop) with decent graphics settings. The maps tend to be a bit on the smaller side of what I would prefer, but that does make for manageable load times.

From a sound perspective, I always enjoy the crunch and distinct sound of the Gauss Rifle firing... each weapon does have it's own unique sound. Unit barks are a bit limited, as are the comments and commands from the Company XO on the dropship.

Other than that, it is a competent game from a technical point of view... but you would hope that that would be the case after a year of beta testing on the Epic gamers!

My Thoughts

Mechwarrior 5... mixed thoughts. I love certain aspects of the game, the original control scheme and the short snappy missions... however, I really miss the depth of customisation and I dislike the blandness of the story and missions. RogueTech (the mod of BattleTech) has the opposite problem... huge maps, endless customisation, great procedurally generated missions... but horrific load times and performance difficulties.

The biggest criticism that I would have for the game though, is the management aspect is very simplistic and undercooked... as a merc commander, you rarely feel like you are one step away from financial disaster... in fact, I'm swimming in C-Bill riches! That is not quite the way these games should operate! So, much more could be improved on that front, and I do wonder if the new DLC which emphasises this aspect of the game does fix all of this...

However, if you are looking for a slightly arcadelike take on the MechWarrior franchise, you could do worse than MechWarrior 5. In fact, I would say that the combat is pretty fun in short bursts... its just that the meta-game could use much more work in order to reach the next level of greatness!

... oh, and decent story wouldn't hurt either!

Review Specs

Played at 1080p (144Hz) on:

XMG Fusion 15

CPU: Intel Core i7-9750H
RAM: 16 GB
Storage: SSD (SATA/Nvme)
GPU: Nvidia GTX 2070 Max-Q

Splinterlands (aka the best blockchain game out there!)

Humble Bundle

Have you heard of Humble Bundle? It's a place to get some really great deals on Games, e-books and comic bundles. However, if you sign up for a Humble Bundle Subscription (12 USD per month) you get some really nice bonuses!

1. A 100+ USD bundle of games delivered direct to you each month, redeemable on Steam, Uplay or direct download (depending on the game). This includes recent Triple A games!
2. Access to the Humble Bundle "Trove", a list of 60 games (and growing...) which are free to play as long as you remain a subscriber!
3. Additional Discounts on the Humble Bundle store, with the choice of supporting charities, Humble Bundle or developers in whatever percentage that you wish!

Humble Bundle Subscriptions, it's a no brainer for the dedicated gamer!