First of all, I love Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries. Despite its flaws, it's an excellent game with a satisfying game loop and complementary systems that help to make it a satisfying experience and one I've actually willingly restarted to try a new game more than once.
I was hoping for more of the same from Mechwarrior 5: Clans.
Unfortunately, MW 5: Clans takes the things that make MW5: Mercenaries good and gets rid of them and replaces them with a more linear, narrative driven experience that unfortunately dispenses with design elements that make MW5: Mercs so good.
The Good:
- Unreal engine 5 makes the graphics and general performance of the environments work smoothly and look great (with the exception of the character models, more on that below).
- The co-op experience is better designed from the ground up. MW5: Clans allows co-op players the ability to looks through most of the context menus available to the hosting player, making the co-op feel more "co-op" and less like being a passenger. I can see the map in Clans, I can see the missions, I can buy things in the marketplace, Mercs doesn't give me those options as a guest. I can only drive the mechs and tinker with them. Clans give the co-op player more information and agency. That way I can collaborate with the other players.
- The in-game map is so much better.
The Bad:
- Because the gameplay is more linear, so is the equipment that you find. In MW5: Mercs, there's always the fun experience of finding new loot, so you can change and tune your mechs. It's largely procedurally generated, so you can get ahold of mechs or weapons early on that makes tweaking your mech very enjoyable and you're always on the lookout for this or that thing. It really propels the gameplay loop. MW5: Clans doesn't have that aspect, really so it kills the desire to want to keep playing to make your mech better so that you can kick ass.
- Progression is tied to "levels" so you're not going to find something that's a bit OP. That constant scaling makes the levels a slog and boring, honestly. No amazing mechs just discovered, no amazing weapons just discovered, just the stuff you'd expect for this part of the game.
- Along those lines, the game mechanics that are more center stage in Mercs is downplayed or not existent in Clans. Replacing the sandbox is the linear story which... is boring. I don't care about the characters, I don't care about the story and I don't care about what's happening. It needed to be extremely good to make it center stage and it just doesn't land for me.
- Along with the writing, the characters are boring. Just... that's it. I don't like them. The, "save the cat" moments for the characters fall flat, and it doesn't change the perception that you're part of a war machine invading sovereign space in the name of a warrior cult of personality that practices eugenics. Then again, the inner sphere isn't much better, but it's hard to paint the clans as the good guy and you need to be pretty narratively flexible to bend yourself into the shape of wanting to see these guys (the player, essentially) succeed.
- The character models aren't great in-game. There's some uncanny valley action happening. During conversations in game, the character eyes just stare unblinkingly into the middle distance. They don't look around at instruments in their cockpit, and they don't blink. Ever. That part really rubs me the wrong way. The cutscenes are a different story, but in game, this is a thing.
- They managed to make tinkering with your mech completely unenjoyable, which is a shame since that is a huge draw to Mercs, partly because of lacking what Mercs has (procedurally generated loot). I wasn't looking forward to getting new mechs because I couldn't -- I had to wait 'til I got to "X" level for whatever mech I wanted instead of saving, selling and salvaging my way to a mech that I wanted. Part of that is that the UI is subtley different, but in a way that is less intuitive and clunkier.
- As to the UI, it isn't very good. There are menus within menus that aren't as clear as they are in Mercs.
- The physics of the mechs feel more "arcadey" and less like a simulation than Mercs did. Going toward less lumbering stompy robots is a mistake. While I can buy it that the clan mechs are more maneuverable and generally better, they only feel like the former but not the latter.
- Clan weapons absolutely tear through IS mechs in Mercs and the narrative supports this. Through several of the first missions in Clans, it feels like a slog going through the IS mechs and it feels like you're too much on an even field against them. You should be tearing through IS lances the same way, but you're just not. It's balance for gameplay, not balance for narrative. But when the game is supposed to be focused on narrative, this part falls flat and is counter to the narrative in general. The design needs to pick a lane. Either clans are technologically superior and are difficult to stop, even when outclassing them several times over in tonnage (like in Mercs) or they're little better than IS mechs (like in Clans).
- There are "boss fights" in this game that just feel lame. One of them has you face off against a VTOL that takes entirely too much damage to drop. Later on, you fight a Corsair mech with lights/mediums. Doing that same fight with the same tech in MW: Mercs isn't even close to the same feel. It's like they nerf your weapons while simultaneously buffing the armor of the bosses and again, it makes little narrative sense. This destroys the feeling of verisimilitude during gameplay and feels just generally arbitrary.
There are more issues I could go through, but the gist is all here.
The main issue is that the loss of the procedurally generated sandbox of MW5: Mercs isn't replaced by a stronger design in Clans. In fact, Clans is just worse, in most ways.
Time is precious. You'll never get today back. If you're going to spend it playing a mech game, spend it playing MW5: Mercenaries and ignore MW5: Clans. Mercenaries is just a better game, with more content, better content, and more satisfying design that always wants you to play "one more mission" to try out your new mech design, or get money for that new mech or new weapon or just to survive another couple of weeks. Clans lacks the stakes and the design chops that would make it a contender.
