MechWarrior 5: Clans

Well, as a long time fan who has been playing all entries since MW2, I'm very pleased with the game. As others have pointed out, the missions - in the base game campaign only - have proven long and challenging. There are a FEW occurrences where it has been frustrating, because I hasd to restart 3-4 times. Like when for the most part, the goal was to stride across the map and do some minor inspections/encounters, just to end up being pounded at the very end. But those were not in great numbers and the campaign is quite lengthy. I enjoy a challenge and since all previous game entries in the series never had checkpoints or worst, the capacity to save at any time, PGI did the right thing. It's just more gratifying when you manage to finish a tough one. Now, I really like how we can manage each pilot's distinct skill, as opposed to some automatic leveling, like in MW5: Mercs. There are also skills that are distinct to only 1 pilot, which is a nice touch. Of course, your starmates - you're not in control of a lance but rather a star, in Clans - still tend to get in your way more often than not, which can sometimes become quite irritating. Gaining mech XP by using them often in battle is a great way to apply upgrades to them, without having to spend credits or merit to do so. Sure, the game is not a sandbox like Mercs, that allows you to experiment and progress as you like through the campaign, but I think PGI have found pretty nice ways to provide flexibility, through different areas. For instance, the ability to upgrade the quantity of salvage, number of scientist on research, number of mechanics to repair faster and of course, said research itself. All in all, I think this game is different enough from Mercs and I do like it very much. The mech lab, although different from the one in Mercs, offer the possibility to swap omnislots, which allow to many combinations. Finally, the cinematics make for a great experience in storytelling, but performance-wise, the game can be demanding. I'm playing on an RTX 5070 Ti so it's pretty smooth most of the time, but I can't vouch for those with more modest rigs.

It's a very good game. I initially was a little annoyed about how arcade-y the game was. And some of the missions you really need to pay attention to the context clues and do as they say. If you aren't optimizing your mech's your going to have a hard time. But, all in all. It's a fantastic updated 90s sim game experience. Full of cut scenes with pulpy acting. If you aren't into that then, maybe Mechwarrior isn't for you. If you're really into the minutiae of tinkering with your mechs, this game isn't really that so much. Some of the mechanics are half-baked, but it's all serviceable and pretty good.

How is this newer game so much worse than Mercenaries? It's like it was made by people who have no understanding of what made Mercs good. The "characters" are cringe-inducing stereotypes, your 'star' (also cringe) all behave like whiny angsty teenagers instead of warriors. Things like using the term 'kit' to refer to recruits are just too camp, especially when the whole thing takes itself so seriously despite being so ridiculous. I can only say so much about the gameplay, having not even completed the tutorial mission before tapping out, but I will say this: it sucks. The feeling of size, weight and power from Mercs is gone - instead you feel disconnected from your mech and your surroundings, like you're floating about instead of stomping around in a multi-story death machine. It's like they wanted it to feel more like an FPS, even with legacy controls. Also, removing controls like counter-rotation only when zooming in is frustrating and pointless. The weapon visual and sounds effects are leagues worse than Merc's too. They're so weak compared to how they used to be, they all feel like pea-shooters, both with the firing effects and the effect on targets. The autocannon you start with is bad enough, but the LRM feels like throwing a handful of gravel at someone rather than unleashing a barrage of deadly explosives. Where's the recoil? Where are the booms of cannon fire and the whoosh of missile barrages? The UI is also a downgrade. Everything is larger and more cluttered, even the basic things like the missile lock indicator are just less obvious and satisfying. We don't need rotation, speed and heat following our cursor. We also don't need it to be green with soft edges against a GREEN ENVIRONMENT. Lastly, the AI are dumber than a bag of rocks. They follow you around like ducklings and can't even fight without being told exactly what to do. Overall, this is a severe downgrade in almost every way compared to Mercenaries, and graphical fidelity does not a good game make. Unfortunately I have had this too long to get my money back, but I suggest you avoid this cringe-fest like the plague and buy Mercenaries instead. Or stick with it and get some DLC/ mods.

The Smoke Jaguar Campaign is fun and feels like a MW:5 game. The 2 DLCs are not - at all. The limitations on mechs, economy, and pilots is boring and frustrating. I understand wanting to do some limitations, but that's not what they did. they eliminated choice. In the mech bay, the entire campaign feels like triage instead of choices - agency. there's no design elements as choice has basically been removed. I finished the Smoke Jaguar and Ghost Bear campaigns and Smoke Jaguars is the only campaign worth doing. I couldn't get 5 missions into the Wolves campaign before I noticed just how bad (lazy) they made the 3rd DLC.

Probably a better introduction to MechWarrior 5 than its Mercenaries brother. More story, cut scenes and the mech systems a little bit simpler and clear making it a bit of a softer landing on start. Great game and will finish this and it's DLC before returning to Mercenaries for sure.

As a lifelong BattleTech / MechWarrior fan who grew up immersed in the novels and deep lore of both the Inner Sphere and the Clans, I’ve been consistently disappointed by most MechWarrior PC releases over the past two decades. Many have felt shallow, unfocused, or simply failed to capture what made the universe special in the first place. That said—credit where it’s due. Despite being a long-time critic of Piranha Games (purely out of love for the franchise and frustration with how it’s been handled), MechWarrior 5: Clans – Wolves of Tukayyid genuinely surprised me. It was an enjoyable experience from start to finish. MechWarrior 5: Clans is the closest any game has come to feeling like reading the novels—fully immersed in the Clan Invasion and the pivotal battle of Tukayyid. The atmosphere, pacing, and narrative weight finally align with the source material in a way that respects long-time fans. The last time I felt this level of immersion in a MechWarrior title was MechWarrior 3, particularly the Pirate’s Moon expansion back in 2000—and that’s high praise. My only real gripe is that the graphics for mechwarrior 5 would be better served more grainy with reduced contrast, i'm not a fan of mildly cartoony graphics. Aside from that, the story was a genuinely great experience. My expectations were low—but they were exceeded. Score: 9/10

To start off, like many other reviews here, I kind of wish there was a "Neutral" or "Sorta". I have had similar issues with performance, allied AI, UGLY character models, and a couple questionable story decisions. That said, I've had fun here. and I'm inclined to recommend it rather than not. If you can see past some of the faults and maybe skip a some of the poorer dialog, it's got a lot going on in the gameplay department. Speaking of dialog, people who aren't familiar with Battletech should look up "Clanner language and speech" before getting into this. This game dumps you right into the Clans with all their abbreviated speech, made up words and lack of contractions. Yes, they don't like them, and the fact that I just typed "Don't" would be considered "Un clan like behavior" to them. Be prepared, clanners are an odd lot. It took me 96 hours to play through the base game, Flash Storm, and Wolves of Tukayyid and is probably a bit longer than others would take to complete it, but, there are a lot of mission... and I was maybe having a ton of fun messing with omni pod setups on mechs, so a bunch of time was spent in the mech lab. Mission count for Base game: 36, then if you save split for the other ending (like I did) it ends up being 39 missions. Then, Flash storm is 12 and Wolves of Tukayyid is 20. 71 missions is pretty hefty and there are some banger maps to explore here. Luthien is GORGEOUS to stomp around in. This said, now that I'm done with all of the missions, I don't really feel inclined to do New Game+ and beyond the story there's not too much replay. So I guess it's time to reclaim 150GB of space back on my SSD and go back to Mech 5 Mercs where all the mods and replayability is. Ummmm Not sure what else to write, I always ramble in reviews, I can always update this later. soooo yeah, Play Mechwarrior, paint minis, Alpha Strike is fun, Pay your HPG bills!

♥♥♥♥ everything about this greedy trash. The missions are balanced horribly because you're reliant 4 garbage computer controlled allies that constantly walk into your fire. When I bought this I was actually planning on buying the dlc to play after the main game. Then while playing through the game I realized you can't buy half the mechs in the mechlab that would be better because they require you buy the dlc. They show all these mechs to you alongside the ones you have access to with no indication they require the dlc until you click to buy them. That little act of greed cost them the sales of the dlc. I'd return this garbage if I could. If you're a long time Mechwarrior fan like I am, do yourself a favor and skip this trash.

This iterates and improves over mech warrior 5 mercs. The hand crafted missions are an improvement over mercs mostly generated mission system. The new clan mechs and improved customization added to the mech lab is great. While the missions are hand crafted they are very linear it would be nice if there were branching decisions like in the older mech warrior installments that lead to different mission chains. There is no incentive to play through any of the campaigns twice unless you just really enjoy it. They did add some new reasons to use the scanning system e.g. opening doors, hacking turrets, disabling mines. But once again its all very linear and can be tedious and generally not fun in certain instances especially when it comes to hacking a bunch of mines to disable them. I did not find it very fun to sit there disabling 10+ mines instead of blasting mechs, I'm not sure what the solution for this is other than just remove the mine hacking. I would like if there was a bit more thought put into exploration, it would be cool to have a less linear path through a mission so that you could explore and maybe find rare weapons or perhaps mech parts (maybe special omnimech parts?). Also the harder difficulties are tedious or just plain impossible due to your AI mech pilots not shooting enough, it would be nice if you could use the battle map to chain commands for your AI pilots e.g. follow this path of waypoints killing everything you see > rejoin on me. Being able to customize their AI behavior would be nice as well i found it pretty much pointless to equip them with the new Arrow 4 missile systems in the DLCs because they are too stupid to create space and actually use them. Overall though its a good new installment to the series and I look forward to new DLC and further improvements.