MechWarrior 5: Clans

My review coming from someone who's played a few hundred hours of MW5:Mercs over the years. The gameplay in Clans seems to be flashier and more arcade-y than Mercs, with a reduced focus on the sim aspect and everything being a bit less "hardcore". It takes some liberties to add stuff like boss fights which feel like they're in mild conflict with how grounded in the BattleTech most of the game otherwise is - though these liberties don't feel jarring. The focus on making things flashy means that sometimes (often depending on weapons used on a mission) explosions on mechs completely obscure the mech itself, and the way missiles fire out makes them look cool but certainly reduces clarity significantly compared to Mercs. So it does feel like that focus has gone a bit too far, but for a more casual MechWarrior experience I don't begrudge these perceived flaws too much. There are some good gameplay additions vs Mercs. The new tactical overhead view for issuing orders is generally fantastic and made me yearn for a MechCommander 3. The jumpjets feel great to use (vectored thrust i.e., directional thrust) and they did us all a favor by more or less backporting the jump jets to Mercs. Having crunched the numbers myself I don't think the overall weapon balance is quite as bad as some people have said (some of the numbers others have crunched are lacking context, making them seem worse than they are). For me, the biggest thing is that the strongest weapons/mechs are unfortunately well suited to the combat range which the level design and gameplay nudges you toward (short-medium range), making the problem worse than it needed to be. I don't think the balance quirks are bad enough to make the game unfun or unfair for a singleplayer (or co-op PvE) experience, though perhaps they do detract [i]a little[/i] from the game for sweaty players on the higher difficulties (myself included). Speaking of loadouts, the mechlab and customization options are a little different than Mercs. I wouldn't necessarily call it better or worse overall, but the fact that it's different is a positive for me as it helps to add novelty to Clans for veteran Mercs players. One thing that didn't change much is lance AI being less than stellar. If you take the time to micromanage them a bit your lance is definitely useful and worth using (instead of trying to solo everything), but it's still common for one good human pilot to be as useful the entire rest of the lance even if everyone has identical loadouts. The story is fine, with a few interesting moments and a small peek into the behind the scens for the "other side of the coin" (Clanners) which is an appreciated change of perspective. The cutscenes are a nice addition and help a lot with immersion in the game world (it's another good aspect which was somewhat backported to Mercs). I thought the voice acting and animations were overall competent - mostly good, though with a handful of moments that stood out as as bit weird looking or sounding. The most generous description of the game's performance that I can muster is "poor". Even after literally buying a new GPU to play the game, running Medium settings at 1440p with DLSS Balanced (preset M) and I would still rarely maintain 60 fps during fights (so I ended up settling on playing at a mix of settings that average around High and just accepted dips to 30-40 fps in intense fights). If the game's visuals "wowed" me I think I wouldn't mind the performance, but although the game looks pretty good I don't think it looks good enough to justify the poor performance. One bright spot regarding performance is that the poor performance was overwhelmingly [i]consistent[/i] for me - I only experienced rare frame pacing / stuttering issues. Continuing on appearance, the game's UI as a keyboard+mouse player felt foreign at times. Maybe this was this a console/controller-first layout? It's not a big deal and I got used to it pretty quickly, but it felt strange enough that I wanted to at least briefly mention it. The visuals and SFX/music are fine. Moving to UE5 obviously allows some of the visuals to be upgraded, though as I said they didn't "wow" me for the performance they seem to have costed. After not playing for a couple of weeks I can't clearly remember the sound of any weapon or any music track, so I guess that means I literally found them forgettable, though not standing out doesn't mean they were bad. I did run into a few bugs while playing, but nothing showstopping. For example, a few times I got fatal errors that crashed the game but these always happened only during startup (never while actually playing). I noticed a few typos, and the mixing of the audio was frequently a bit weird. Whether or not technically a bug, music on menus always sounded too quiet even at 100% volume (barely audible), and sometimes during dialogue between characters, one character would deliver one line at one volume but their next line at a clearly different volume (in an unnatural way that didn't feel like an intentional part of the script). You can kind of see how in making a game that's in many ways complimentary to Mercs, the devs were on a path to combine the best of both to make a MW6. Sadly based on a dev interview it sounds like that won't be happening anytime soon, but I do appreciate that they went to the trouble of porting a couple of things (vectored jump jets, better cinematics) to Mercs - something they certainly didn't have to do. I would overall recommend the game to existing MechWarrior / BattleTech fans who think the idea of a slightly more casual and flashier gameplay experience with a linear storyline sounds appealing (the hardcore sim crowd might find it disappointing). It might be a decent entry point for newcomers too because it's a less hardcore experience than Mercs is. I wouldn't nominate it for an award, but I think it's worth playing within its genre niche. Unlike with Mercs (which is quite barebones without DLCs), the Clans DLCs don't feel essential to flesh out the game, and are close to being standalone extra content for people who enjoyed the base game and want more. The price seems fair enough for what you get, and sales are frequent if value for money is the thing holding back your purchase.

Best Mechwarrior game out there, but Mercs sure gives it a run for its money.

After playing MW5 mercs a ton, this is a nice change of pace.

Большие мех чудовища, и история.

There is a game breaking bug. I got to the point of the "Pin the Dragon" mission but I cannot take the mission. The previous one shows complete and I have replayed it several times but I still cannot start the pin the dragon mission. So I cannot progress the campaign. Until this is addressed, I cannot recommend this DLC.

Played that game on release, using Xbox Game Pass. Ive nearly had no issues back then. So I thought getting the steam version to play it again would be a nice thing. That was a pretty big mistake, since the steam version or some patches destroyed the game later on. Every 2nd Mission Ive encountered a gamebreaking bug, which forced me to restart it. The AI seems now even dumber than before. People stated that the AI also got worse in Mechwarrior 5: Mercs based on some patches/dlc`s and the parent company Enad Global 7 reduced the team cause they werent selling enough. I really hope that Piranha Games and also Enad Global 7 will be kicked out the game and go bankrupt for their coporate greed. Lets hope that one day MS will give their MW license to a good studio.

This is dedication

I bought this on heavy discount almost 2 years after release. I always wondered why this did not sell well. Now I know. Cutscenes good, story good. Part of gameplay good. Cool looking UI. Graphics looks good. Music bad, Sound TERRIBLE, AI is HORRENDOUS. Frequent crashes (on 3 different machines mind you). UI bugs. UI readability is very bad. Physics is bad. ALL of this translates into an experience that had the potential to be fun but is instead a hollow and disjointed one. --------------------------------------------- I've never been a hater or a fanboi of PGI, I've always looked at things from a business and consumer standpoint. The truth is PGI has no one to blame for the underselling of this but themselves. This is because they focused on adding new shiny aspects but the CORE of the game, which is... you know... the Gameplay was left behind. This would be an amazing game if: The sense of scale and weight was there, If the game's bugs and crashes (how is it 2 years in and you cannot select missions because of widescreen) allowed you to play. If when playing the friendly AI did more help than harm. TLDR: I like Mechwarrior, but this is boderline unplayable. Living on the glimmers of fun interrupted by constant issues from UI to AI to flat out crashes is not fun. I feel bad for whoever had to playtest this, and for anyone that bought this at full price. I kinda feel bad I bought this at heavy discount. --------------------------------------- HOW TO FIX for next entry: DEAR PGI, sure add whatever new shiny feature you want on your next entry (there probably wont be a next entry after this), but do NOT neglect the core of the game.... which is: 1) the ability to play (fix easy bugs like UI widescreen and harder bugs like frequent crashes) 2) Fun gameplay (AI can be dumb, but you have to make it so they are "useless AI" instead of "making gameplay worse AI" at a minimum. 3) Focus on the core experience of the player. The player wants to play giant stompy robots. The sound design lacks weight and umph. The physics lack weight and umph. Imagine if this game had everything you added, but people could, you know, select missions, and play 2 missions without crashes. Imagine if the AI still did little to nothing but at least stayed out of your way. Imagine if the weapons sounded powerful, and mechs sounded heavy. Imagine instead of dead mech light ragdoll physics the Mechs had weight to them, the crushed things when they fell, arms exploded outwards, or even if they still just fell to the ground like now, it sounded heavy. I'm sad PGI discovered how to make great looking cutscenes and focused so much on that they forgot to play their game.