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Review

Oct 16, 2024

MechWarrior 5: Clans Review

Lights Off
5 Incredible
Retails for: $49.99
We Recommend: $49.99
  • Developer: Piranha Games
  • Publisher: Piranha Games
  • Genre: Action, Simulation
  • Released: Oct 17, 2024
  • Platform: Windows, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5
  • Reviewed: Windows

While it might be slightly confusing, the series has been known to have multiple games bearing the same number in the game’s title, but doing very different things with the subtitle. With this, MechWarrior 5: Clans is not an expansion or DLC to MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, it is a game that stands on its own over its sandboxy predecessor. And let me tell you, MechWarrior is back in a big way. Piranha Games have made an authentic MechWarrior game that’s true to the series and befitting of the BattleTech lore. MechWarrior 5: Clans demand strategy and tactics, else you’ll be killed or go bankrupt. While it asks a lot of you, there’s nothing else like it.

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In the BattleTech universe, MechWarrior 5: Clans takes place during the aptly named “Clan Invasion of the Inner Sphere” in the year 3049. This means this is a full 34 years after MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. The invasion is a joint effort by the Jade Falcon, Wolf, Ghost Bear, and Smoke Jaguar clans. Clans focuses on the Smoke Jaguar Clan, specifically around five new recruits who aim to make a name for themselves. For anyone paying attention, this is in opposite side of the conflict depicted in 1999’s MechWarrior 3, which is really exciting to see it from this perspective.

What may standout for many is the plethora of cutscenes. There’s a real focus on storytelling and really detailing what’s happening in this universe from a political and systematic view. The cutscenes will delve into the relationships of the clans, the conflict that ensues, and the heartbreak that’s inevitable. You play as new Star Commander Jayden, where his inexperience is your inexperience, and you’ll have to work with this rookie team and maintain the outfit through the ups and downs, successes, and failures to emerge victorious in this invasion while also improving your skills as a player.

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The first proper mission after completing the trials to become a member of the Smoke Jaguar Clan is a humbling one. It does a good job at letting you know what’s always at stake, and through trial-and-error how to become better. Missions will be a lot of things, but you’ll often have to scan to salvage items, hack mines, open doors, and otherwise find items not easily visible. Missions have a simple premise, but will almost always contain twists of sneak attacks or red herrings. You’ll have to adapt and overcome these challenges, as there’s no manual or many autosaves you can rely on during a mission. So if you fail or perform poorly, you’ll have to restart the mission from start, which can be a gauntlet for some to complete them in one-go. The game features three difficulties: Story, Normal, and Hard. I did have to dial the difficulty down about halfway through, the game doesn’t pull any punches.

New to Clans is that you can switch to an overhead view which is essentially an real-time strategy interface not unlike the MechCommander games where you can command the star of mechs to follow orders and go to specific locations. Now this isn’t an RTS sheep in Clan Wolf’s clothing, but this is real-time strategy in first-person. There’s a lot of risk when going into each mission as parts of your mech can get shot off, causing you or your team to lose weapon functionality, reducing their effectiveness. Now if you’ve not lost an arm completely, you can resort to melee, but this too can get you killed. Landing a final blow on a mech can be satisfying, but if it’s core explodes too close to you, you will take a lot of damage or die alongside them. In a lot of ways, the percentage of health each mech has can equate to the percentage of success they are likely to survive said mission.

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MechWarrior 5: Clans runs on two currencies: Kerenskies and Merits. The former is what you use to purchase new mechs and the assorted weapons. Merits is what you use to unlock them for purchase. Lastly, there is Honor which serves as experience, and is used for leveling up individual pilots and their skills. One of the best ones to invest in early on is evasion, this skill alone might as well be called luck, because as it is leveled higher and higher, you’ll be dodging shots like Neo from “The Matrix” out on the battlefield.

The metagame has been completely revamped, and is how you can snowball into success or create an avalanche of failure. There’s a new MechLab, Science Lab, and Marketplace system to get acquainted with. The MechLab is where you’ll outfit your mechs with their individual weapons, groups, and even paintjob. The Research Lab is overwhelming. After the completion of the first mission, there was a staggering 53 research options for my available 250 points to choose from. I could research upgrades to probes, ECM, ER laser, ER PPC, flamer, Gauss rifle, jump jets, LBX autocannon, LRM cooldown, pulse laser, and so on. The marketplace is a great place to find new or used mechs to rebuild and outfit backups should mechs sustain too much damage in any given mission. While not part of the metagame, there is a SimPod where you can participate in training or replay older missions.

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There aren’t any surprises when it comes to weapons, all the aforementioned weapons you can equip are what you’d expect from the BattleTech universe and a MechWarrior game. While it’s not new, this game does feature both a first and third-person view, and purists will say first-person is the only way to play, but the third-person view provides so many benefits and a great way to see how much damage you’ve taken. While I miss the lamps of the older games, the night vision you can take advantage of during night missions offer great visibility with no downsides. One last gameplay benefit, in service of accessibility is the quick command wheel, allowing you to issue commands easily without needing to memorize any keys, and is in-line with the console usage.

Anyone who knows the story and timeline that this game exists in, there will still be some surprises in store for you. In fact, the narrative is far more satisfying and interesting than MW5: Mercs ever was. Even individual missions have solid variety, from investigations to all-out assaults. This extends to the different planets you’ll visit and the biomes you’ll encounter such as deserts, jungles, caverns, and towns. While being told about the planet, you’ll get information on the biomes, conditions around visibility, how big the battle area is, and the tonnage limit you can bring. You’re likely to spend well over 30 hours in this campaign, taking into consideration difficulty and the way you play through it.

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Upon a successful mission, you’ll be able to salvage components up to a certain amount. This can be increased with future research. Until then you’ll have to be selective on which mech, weapon, and equipment components you take from each mission. This ties back into the metagame component, being mindful of what resources you need to further bolster your star.

Returning from MW5: Mercenaries is online co-op. Instead of it just being four-player co-op, it matches the star of mechs you command, meaning it supports five players total. It also supports cross-play for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, allowing for friends across all platforms to play together seamlessly.

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MW5: Clans receives a huge facelift with a move to Unreal Engine 5, over MW5: Mercenaries which ran on Unreal Engine 4. There’s destructible environments that crumble under the weight of your hulking mechs, and it’s great to see mechs blow up in glorious fashion in equally beautiful environments. During the review period, I did have to play with NVIDIA Reflex and Frame Generation turned off. I did use DLSS 3.7 with Ultra Quality enabled, and achieved on average 70fps during missions. I do feel when these other features are enabled, and further optimization takes place, this game will be as performant as it is pretty.

My PC Specs:

– Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
– Intel Core i9 13900K @ 5.8GHz
– ASUS ROG RYUJIN II 360 ARGB AIO Liquid CPU Cooler
– G.SKILL TRIDENT Z5 6000MHZ 64GB (32×2) DDR5 RAM
– ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 4080 16GB GDDR6X
– WD_BLACK SN850X M.2 (4 TB)
– LG UltraGear 34GP950B-G (21:9 Ultrawide @ 3440×1440)

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MechWarrior 5: Clans takes everything good about MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, but makes it better in every regard. The metagame has its own risks and rewards, every mission has stakes that can be felt immediately, or later in the campaign. MechWarrior 5: Clans is nostalgic and reminiscent of past games while being a great entry point for newcomers. Piranha Games has been working on the MechWarrior franchise for a decade now, and MechWarrior 5: Clans is their magnum opus. It’s a culmination of everything they’ve built and learned for one of the most fully fleshed out MechWarrior games to ever exist.

A Steam code was provided in advance by the publisher for review purposes