Battletech has been an IP that has popped up throughout my life in various forms. I think the first time I saw anything Battletech was at my local comic book shop. Those little pewter ‘mechs ignited my imagination and forever solidified a lifetime enthusiasm for pilotable mechs. See, I didn’t want to play Battletech: I wanted to be a mechwarrior.
Mechwarrior 5: Clans is a standalone expansion to Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries. In fact, I wouldn’t have blamed them if they just called it Mechwarrior 6 or just Mechwarrior Clans.
Developer Piranha Games changed up the formula significantly for this latest release. Instead of playing as a mercenary leader, you’re in the warrior caste of a highly militarized society that invades and conquers sovereign worlds.
I’ve heard about the Clan invasion in Battletech, but I’ve never had the chance to play as a Clan Mechwarrior invading the Inner Sphere. Now, if you’re reading this review and thinking “I have no idea what the Inner Sphere is or why the Clans would be invading,” you’re going to have to do some catch-up: Clans does little to ease you into its dense narrative. Instead it throws you into the deep end. It doesn’t help that characters are constantly spouting jargon and esoteric phrases with little context. I wish they had an in-game glossary, but instead I found myself going to sarna.net to figure out what the hell they’re talking about.
Because the Clans have been away from the rest of the human population for a couple of centuries building a militaristic society, they have an entire dialect of their own. Let me start you off by telling you “aff” means “yes.” It’s short for affirmative. The Clans frown on contractions, but love to shorten words and phrases–like “battle challenge,” shortened to “batchall.” Shortened portmanteaus are good, but contractions are lazy. If you’re wondering why I’m talking about this and not the gameplay, it's because the narrative is such a huge focus in Clans.And this surprisingly comes up a lot.
That means there are a lot of cutscenes. I feel like Piranha Games was going for that AAA look–and they mostly nailed it. However, there is something that’s just a little off with the facial animations sometimes. But overall I think they did a good job.
Since Clans is so much more narratively focused than Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, you have less choices for how to play. Gone is the ability to choose your missions as you see fit. This takes away a significant chunk of what made up Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries , and actually makes Clans a little less for it. The trade-off is new handcrafted levels that have a few variations, but end up feeling same-y anyway.
Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries wasn’t just a game where you engaged in ‘mech combat, it was a game that made every decision count. Failing a mission in Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries had consequences that could ripple into further problems. All you get in Clans is a “restart mission” prompt when you’re met with failure. There isn’t the chance to keep going to see what happens or dig yourself out of a hole. This means failure doesn’t have gameplay consequences beyond having to redo the mission.
I loved Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, and when I originally wrote about it for another publication I gave it a glowing review. However, hindsight and user reviews revealed to me the flaws that I missed because I was just so enamored with the stompy robot experience. After reading other people’s impressions, I realized that maybe I was just too into developer Piranha Games’ flavor of Battletech. I spent many hours in Mechwarrior Online, which is a precursor to Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries. I was already a bit biased.
Mechwarrior 5: Clans does a lot to address the gameplay complaints of its predecessor. This is mainly done through scripted enemy encounters–which is a result of those handcrafted missions I mentioned earlier. Mostly gone are the helicopters that would surprise spawn behind you. Clans has some decent mission variety too. Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries had you stuck running a handful of mission types. Clans, on the other hand, gives you varying objectives as you go through the levels. Sometimes the mission obvjectives even change as the story unfolds. But those changes mostly involve fighting more ‘mechs. So not much different there.
There are only a few changes that Clans made to the robot fighting formula. For one, now you can scan stuff. But only certain things. And usually to make the mission move along. Also, melee is hard baked into Clans. But for Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries it was a paid DLC. Being able to melee out of the box is pretty cool.
As I’ve said to everyone I know: I really love how visceral and explosive the combat can be in Mechwarrior 5. Clans is no exception. There was a time, in my youth, that I hated the overheating mechanic in other Mechwarrior games, and how slow the battles can be. Don’t get me wrong, it’s like that here. But Mechwarrior 5 has enough visual fidelity and audio magic to sell the fact that you’re piloting a walking fortress as you lay waste to tanks and walk straight through buildings and walls. And maybe it was the impatience of youth, but there’s something spectacular about trading blows with an opponent while smashing through infrastructure and using buildings as cover.
In battle you will be with your team. One of the complaints of the previous game was how unhelpful your teammates can be. That’s not always the case here, but you have to make sure you match the right pilot to the right weapons. You can also give orders in the midst of battle. This allows you the ability to set up ambushes, have units scout ahead, etc. There’s even a top-down battle map that allows you to issue orders to your units RTS style. This helps give a little bit of perspective to the battlefield.
Developer Piranha Games did a great job making you feel like you’re in danger, despite being in control of a walking fortress. You have to keep a clear head to maneuver and position your ‘mech so you reduce incoming damage while maximizing the pain you put on your opponents. If enough enemy ‘mechs concentrate fire on you, you can lose components or get cored before you know it. You have the ability to switch to other teammates, so losing your ‘mech isn’t an automatic fail. But don’t expect to come out of battles completely unscathed, even if you use terrain and buildings as cover. It’s not uncommon for me to finish a mission with most mechs missing components.
Of course, without the meta game component of Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, losing components or having your mechs badly damaged never feels like it sets you back too far. In Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries, a bad mission could lead to your best pilots getting killed, and expensive ‘mech repairs that can take a long time. There is none of that in Clans.
Clans does introduce a new system for managing your vehicles and crew. Each crewmember has a set of skills you can choose to spend their individual XP on. Some of the skills are specialized, like rocket lock-on, etc.. Others are more general like “evasion,” which is essential if you don’t want your teammates to get hit more than they have to.
You have to choose to spend profile XP on upgrading your science bay or your repair bay. More scientists and more efficient research means you can unlock ‘mech upgrades faster. Repair bay upgrades and technicians ensure that your ‘mechs are repaired before the next mission. But Clans never forces you to make hard decisions. I never was in danger of running out of money. I could almost always buy the next upgrade in the tree. The only way to fail is if you’re unable to pass the next mission and can’t proceed.
There are a lot of different ways to customize your experience and upgrade your ‘mechs. Different chassis have experience points you accumulate through combat, which you can then spend to unlock new omnipods and also unlock your ‘mech’s full potential by upgrading its stats like movement top speed, how far you can turn your torso, etc. You can also change your ‘mechs paint jobs as you unlock more by progressing through the chassis upgrades.
Clans has a handful of other problems that I’ve run into, like teammates that don’t follow orders during battle sometimes, or teammates that have annoying pathfinding. Mostly issues with teammates.
I also, ironically (based on lore), find the omnimechs to be a little squishier than I anticipated. I think that’s because the Clan mechs have most of their weapons on their arms. The Clan ‘mechs also lack the variety that the Inner Sphere ‘mechs have. They’re all a bit uniform to each other, and a little bland. I have, sadly, not really found a Clan ‘mech I really love.
You can play the entire Clans campaign cooperatively with up to four other friends. And while I really love co-op, there’s something that’s making me miss my Mechwarrior Online days. And while that game technically still exists, it’s in the dated Cryengine. I’d love to see a Mechwarrior Online 2 or an expansion that adds PvP into Clans.
Mechwarrior 5: Clans isn’t perfect. And I’ve learned to temper my praise a bit. Clans isn’t exactly everything I wanted it to be–but I hope it’s what the fans want, because I would love to keep playing Mechwarrior games for the foreseeable future. Piranha Games really nailed the stompy robot carnage both in look and feel.
Mechwarrior 5: Clans is available October 16th and will be available on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store as well as on Xbox and PlayStation consoles.
A Steam key was provided to us for this review
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