Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II

I would love to post a positive review, although it wasn't the first game I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this game. The necron story was a bit campy and predictable but the gameplay felt like pushing an unstoppable force forward to spite the imperials. Then the June Unity patch hit and the game is unplayable. Won't even launch. I get error 6000 something because the popup disappears quickly and nada. I've tried reinstalling, verifying files, updating drivers, everything and none of it works. Until the game is playable again for me it has to be a negative review.

The developers managed to deliver interesting Admech and Necron campaigns with interwoven stories. Good story and voice acting. Fun chess-inspired gameplay, which is quite difficult at higher difficulties, especially at the start and mid. Both campaigns dragged a bit at the end for me however. Therefore I give it a solid 7.1 / 10

Сырой брошенный на произвол продукт, который никому оказался не нужен, особенно разработчикам

It's different from mechanicus 1, but doesn't mean it's bad

Necron campaign was cool for awhile but the ending was lame. Faustinius has way too much plot armor.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, what a broken mess of a game...everything fun of the first one is NOT present in the second. The voices are just awefull, the runs are boring, and in the end you just have nothing left and you have to do the whole thing again. And the music. The music from Mech 1 is now in memes across internet. The music of Mech 2 is just garbage. What a waste.

This review is a complicated one. I DO like this game on the skirmish map and prefer it over Mechanicus 1, but the systems around the game are worse than the first game. I played it start to finish, starting with the Necron campaign. Unfortunately, I'd advise AGAINST doing this because the story makes alot more sense if you start with the Mechanicus, as the two campaigns are actually two sides of the same story from Faustinius and his Intervention Clade and Nefershah and her Royal Court. The Necron campaign is significantly easier than the Mechanicus one, so if you are familiar with these kinds of games, I'd ramp it up to Tactical difficulty minimum. I beat the Mechanicus campaign and the Epilogue on Tactical and especially early game it was rather challenging. Something I especially love over the first game is that you are commanding a single Tech-Priest who is supported by multiple squads of menial troops which 3 years into the Tabletop hobby is far more accurate to how the Mechanicus actually play compared to the first game where you have 6 Tech-Priests running through an entire tomb complex steamrolling every Necron that moves. The upgrade paths for all of the Tech-Priests also feel good and it feels like once you acquire all of the possible upgrades that it feels like several builds are possible with each Tech-Priest, especially Videx (sniper build with a nuke ability for one of his troops or full ritual build to control the battlefield). Both campaigns have a similar issue, an issue I'd argue is due to one of the series' upgrades: the voice acting, and the fact that both sides have voice acting, not just the Necrons. The voice acting from both sides is quite good, and while alot of people miss the Lingua Technis (and from what I heard their stopgap solution is quite bad) from the first game, I embraced the voices that were given, even if there were some unexpected directions they took (for example, English Rho sounds more like Lingua Technis Faustinius). As a consequence of more voice acting, the side missions that were plentiful in the first game had to be replaced with more generic missions with more generic dialogue, most notably the territory expansion missions, as I didn't particularly mind the Defense or Assault (tomb complex/forge city) missions. A point of aggravation is the fact that the game does not have good onboarding. What I mean is for example, is oftentimes the advice devs gave for new players is not something you can see in game, which I will say here: When playing through the campaign, you should level up 3 characters (for Ad Mech I'd recommend Videx, Captrix, and either Rho or Khepra, Necrons any of them are good, but Phekon is insanely strong), using your other two lords/tech-priests use them to fulfill the easy "send them to do thing missions". Another thing is while the combat is far better balanced than the first game (in the first game, you could delete god by building anything), the systems around it are worse. Early game, Requisition and Living Metal are actual concerns and something you had to manage but once you get to the early-mid game it basically doesn't matter. The strategic map gives the illusion of choice, because you can complete everything in a reasonable time frame anyways. In Chaos Gate Daemonhunters for example, you might not be able to complete some missions because of your position on the map and the time you have usually only lets you complete at best 2 missions so sometimes you might have to just let a mission fail because you can't reach it. No such choice exists in Mechanicus 2, and is definitely a missed opportunity. Perhaps if there were random events that forced you to give up requisition or have more of your team go away and be forced to skip your turn (there should be a skip turn button btw, let me send all my characters on side missions and skip turn to resolve everything). Another point of aggravation is in the Adeptus Mechanicus campaign with the random units. It doesn't make alot of sense that while each Necron Lord has a set list of Necrons that they can unlock with levels, the Tech-Priests have to deal with a random selection of units for all of their missions. Sometimes you want to run Rho, but you don't get any Heavy units (Kataphrons or Kastelans), sometimes you want to run Videx, but you don't have any Electro-Priests, sometimes you want to run Captrix, but you don't have any Sicarians, etc. If each Tech-Priest had a pool of 12 units to choose from that they unlocked and upgraded over the game it would be better. The random traits can also feel bad because sometimes you get Ruststalkers with Perfect vision (ruststalkers can't shoot), or level 3 skitarii with only health or movement upgrades. It just feels like if the game had a bit more time this issue could've been fixed. Like for example, Khepra's Skitarii could have Advantageous position, +1 move, and improved dodge while Rho's Skitarii could have +1 Defense and true grit. While I did praise the feel of combat and the skirmish map, I do have a few issues with it. 1. Triarch Praetorians are a pain point for the whole community, especially if you are forced to deal with 6 of them. Their dive deals insane damage, they always target large groups, and the pistol variants can deal armor crush AND defense down. Yes the "target large groups" bit CAN be exploited but some deployment maps make this rather difficult, especially if you have more units you can deploy. If the deployment maps were expanded just a bit more that could help with that. 2. The enemy variety in the side missions does not go beyond a certain point. Like as the Adeptus Mechanicus the most you might fight is a single Lokhust heavy destroyer supported by 6 praetorians. Letting the difficulty ramp up as you got more and more upgrades or as more and more turns pass would have been nice, like having to deal with something like an endgame Phekon army (4 Deathmarks, 3 LHDs) or something like that would have been interesting. You also rarely see Canopteks of any kind through most of the game it feels like except in main missions. 3. Mission variety felt rather low. More missions where you have to escort something, reach a destination with your Tech-Priest, or Assassinate something, but also holdout missions (survive for X turns) would've helped especially with Side mission variety, especially if there were choices in between skirmishes to do so (like calling in for Archaeopter support and so you have to hold out for X amount of turns until they arrive). Would I recommend this game? A tentative yes if you would like to continue the story of Faustinius and the Tech-Priests that conquered Silva Tenebris or just wait for a sale. It's a decently fun game that is actually challenging on higher difficulties plagued by a few design decisions that prevented the game from being great. Overall I'd give the game a 6.5/10.

Impossible. Heresy. Unspeakable. Heresy. Heresy. Terrible performance, very little player agency and customization. Annoying enemies and a lot of minor issues that make Mechanicus 2 a heresy of a sequel. The soundtrack is very nice, but not as good as the previous game's OST.