When I got a chance to see MechWarrior 5: Clans up close back in April, I came away pretty pleased with what I saw. Now, I’ve got to actually go hands-on with the game, and have played through the first few chapters of what promises to be the biggest, prettiest narratively driven MechWarrior game ever.
Welcome to the Inner Sphere
After MechWarrior Online and the more procedurally focused MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, MechWarrior 5: Clans takes us to the Inner Sphere and places us in the boots of five members of Clan Smoke Jaguar, led by young and ambitious Jayden.
I won’t spoil any story or plot details here, but I will say that Piranha Games have really gone all out here with the presentation. Cutscenes and environments are well-rendered and show a massive improvement in textures, animations and motion-capture technologies.
Before getting into the meat of the campaign, we follow our protagonists from trainees to full blooded MechWarriors. There’s a tutorial of sorts where we learn to pilot four storeys of ferro-steel machine, and as well as being able to stomp around, we also get hands on with the ‘battlegrid’.
In single player, we can command and control our AI companions, either by utilising the Battlegrid, or via a quick command wheel during gameplay. The Battlegrid gives us a pretty nifty looking birds-eye view of the battlefield, allowing us to give commands to our Star, like directing them to where we’d like them to be, who to engage, and more.
The Command Wheel allows for quick selections for either all of your squad or individuals, giving commands to defend an area, form up or attack my selected target.
When playing in the full fledged five player co-operative mode, I have to admit, I didn’t find much use for either, which is a shame. But hey, I have friends. Not everyone does! And yes, the game supports full co-operative cross play across consoles and PC, which is delightful.
Form Up
In this early preview, my RTX 4090 managed to run the game on ‘maximum’ settings, with all the bells and whistles enabled. I was pleased to see it supported my ultrawide display out of the box.
The first genuine mission (beyond the initial tutorial sections) I played is the same one we saw in my earlier preview, as our Star is tasked with tackling a pirate den (space pirates are the best kind of pirate!).
Our team is deployed from a Broadsword Dropship, operating light mechs as a scouting unit – fast, but lacking in armour, deployed on to Santander V, a desert-like world.
During the mission, three large dropships are detonated while members of our clan are investigating as a part of a larger ruse. The meat of the rest of my time with the preview for MechWarrior 5: Clans remains on this world, as we track down the pirates that are plundering the planets resources, on a mission to avenge our fallen comrades.
I can’t lie, it’s a delight to be playing uniquely handcrafted story-driven content in the Battletech universe. I’m no lore expert, but it brought back all sorts of memories of my formative years playing MechWarrior 2 and Mercenaries on my PC as a kid.
As the story progresses, the stakes are laid out, including Clan Smoke Jaguars desire to finally begin a full ‘true’ invasion of the Inner Sphere via ‘Operation Revival’, targeting systems within the Draconis Combine. Either that will excite the hell out of you, or leave you wondering what the hell I just said. This is a Battletech Game for Battletech nerds, for good and for ill.
Keep it Simple
Despite the lore-heavy approach, this is undoubtedly the most approachable MechWarrior game Piranha have ever developed. Everything, from the controls to the menus has been streamlined and, no – it’s not a bad thing, at least most of the time. I’ll get into that.
Controls feel intuitive (and dare I say it, a little bit MechAssault-ish?) – manoeuvring my combat mech felt great, my weapon groups split across the triggers, with the right bumper being used to switch to a 3rd group. This was playing with modernised controls on an Xbox controller, obviously, but don’t worry if you’re an old school PC MechWarrior enthusiast – they have a traditional control setup if that’s what you’re used to from previous games.
You still have to manage your thermals, your ammo is limited (unless it’s a laser), and if you sustain damage to any fuselage that house those weapons, you can expect them to malfunction or be destroyed entirely.
The missions themselves try to vary things as best they can for a game about giant laser shooting mechs, with salvage to find off the beaten path, objects to scan and locations to defend. Mech on Mech combat can be quite the spectacle, and that’s before you chuck turrets, tanks, attack fighters and more into the mix.
Mechanical Labour
The weight and feel of the mechs at least right now, feels a little off – and I think there are several reasons for that. One is this is a genuinely in-development preview, and the current build still has a number of audio issues, including the lack of a final mix pass, so my hope is that the audio mix is improved to bring a true sense of weight to the hulking machine I control come the proper 1.0 release.
Secondly, the preview only had me controlling light and medium Mechs most of the time, so I didn’t get to break a Timberwolf out of storage and take it for a spin. As you’re never outside of your mech (outside of the very nice cutscenes), it means the overall sense of scale is lacking, and the Mechs just didn’t feel as big as perhaps they should.
Lastly, the feedback both on firing your weapons and being hit by them, feels…underwhelming. Again, this could be party due to the audio mix, but being hit by something that genuinely ripped my mech apart didn’t feel as impactful as it perhaps could have. As such, the jury is still out on quite how the final product will feel.
What I want is to feel and hear the rhythmic thud and the massive weight of the mech as it stomps across the landscape, or the sheer volume of firepower as I unleash my guns on an opponent. Right now, it feels a little too wishy-washy in that department.
As you level up, you’ll progress in experience and unlock new, heavier mechs to take into battle. These can be purchased multiple times, and you can equip the star as you see fit. Over the course of the preview, I tried various Mechs, from the KitFox, the Viper, a ShadowCat and the classic (and massively heat generating) Nova. If you’re familiar with previous MechWarrior games, the new streamlined Mech Lab is definitely different to what you may be used to, but overall, it is much simpler.
When you finish a mission, you can pull some resources back with you to invest into various upgrades and research projects. Progression with any particular mech will earn XP, with which you can obtain different Omnipods. You can think of these as preconfigured alternative weapon setups for the various areas on your Mech – Torsos, Arms, Head and so on. You can still manually customise these, but the Omnipods is a nice way to give an easier path to customisation to those that want it.
Operation Revival
The biggest issue I have with MechWarrior 5: Clans is the AI. If you’re playing this as a single player game, I foresee lots of frustration in store when it comes to your AI-controlled team mates. They have trouble path-finding correctly, and will often get killed easily, even if you do give the appropriate commands. Combine that with an enemy AI that will always try and target the arms of your mech, you may find yourself without any weapons to defend yourself.
Right now, it feels unbalanced. The game features three difficulty tiers, and if you’re playing with friends, you’ll likely dominate on anything but the hardest setting, but there are certain moments you may struggle to stay alive if you’re alone, even on the story mode difficulty. A more cautious approach may serve you well here.
MechWarrior is a classic and beloved franchise that deserves a solid story focused outing, and I think the vast majority of MechWarrior fans will be very pleased with the level of lore-focused detail and fidelity Piranha Games have injected into MechWarrior 5: Clans.
I hope that the issues I have in this early look are resolved or at least improved come full release, and I’m looking forward to taking the fight to the Inner Sphere when the game releases later next month to give you a final verdict.
MechWarrior 5: Clans releases October 17th at 0000hrs UTC (Or October 16th at 1700hrs PDT) on Xbox Series Consoles, PlayStation 5, Epic Game Store and Steam. You can wish-list the game today at https://mw5clans.com/
