MechWarrior 5: Clans Review

I have a lot to say in my MechWarrior 5: Clans review following my preview last month. Having now played through the entire campaign, there’s a lot I really like about it.

It’s undoubtedly Piranha Games’ best ever release in the franchise, providing some very enjoyable Mech combat, with a surprisingly great narrative pinning it all together. It also – sadly – is a little frustrating, coming so very close to being much more than the sum of its parts. Alas, for me it falls a little short in a few key areas.

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Let’s start at the beginning.

MechWarrior 5: Clans is a standalone, narrative driven co-operative MechWarrior Game. You’ll take control of five Clan Smoke Jaguar trainees, and over the course of around 20+ hours (more if you up the difficulty) you’ll play through an extensive, story driven campaign as your clan takes the fight to the Inner Sphere to reclaim your birth-right.

I won’t spoil any story beats here, but for what it’s worth, I think die-hard BattleTech fans are going to go nuts over MechWarrior 5: Clans, and for all the right reasons. It’s a love-letter to those well versed in BattleTech, but I acknowledge it may leave newcomers more than a little confused.

For the laymen, it’s worth providing a little education on what ‘Clans’ are, at least in BattleTech lore. Clans, including Smoke Jaguar, are one of twenty founded by the now fervently revered ‘Kerensky’, son of a self-exiled General of the Star League Defence Force, who had left the Inner Sphere behind.

While the Inner Sphere was caught in the widespread destruction from the Succession Wars, the Clans developed their own advanced technology, but always had plans to retake the Inner Sphere centuries later as a part of ‘Operation Revival’.

Our five would-be MechWarriors are all part of the same Sibko (Sibling Company). All ‘trueborn’ children, they have been bred via the combination of two genetic legacies. They are all artificially conceived, and view naturally born, or ‘freeborn’ humans – as inferior.

I include these details to both avoid spoiling any plot, but also to paint a very relevant picture. We are not, in any way, the ‘good guys’. Our characters have been bred and trained from birth to be warriors, and believe they are the only ‘true’ inheritors to Kerensky’s legacy – in short, they are all indoctrinated to the extreme.

There are some genuinely surprising moments and revelations that come to light during the course of the campaign, including a branching narrative that I was not expecting. I have come away very impressed with the high level of effort and artistry put into the voicework and cutscenes throughout the game. Piranha have done excellent work here.

As for how things shake out, I’ll leave you to discover that for yourself.

Sibko

Each of the five characters that form your Star have their own personalities, and importantly from a gameplay perspective, can be levelled to have their own specialisations too. As you complete campaign missions, pilots will earn XP, which can be applied to various attributes for each.

Evasion is a key skill component here, and it’s recommended this is one you focus on before all others. You’ll also be able to specialise further with various ‘Affinity’ slots, be it towards a certain class, or even a specific Mech Chassis if you so choose.

Being a Clan focused title, there aren’t as many Mech’s as I would have liked in the full game, but you’ll unlock the sixteen available at a reasonably steady pace throughout the campaign as you progress. This is done via an honour system, where as you complete missions, you’ll earn honour.

Displayed as a kind of virtual currency, this can be spent to unlock Mechs, or on scientists to complete research faster, technicians for more efficient repairs, or to upgrade how much salvage you earn at the end of a mission.

The game will start you off in lighter Mechs like an Adder or an Arctic Cheetah, before you get to play with the really big toys, like the iconic Timberwolf or the far more threatening Assault Mech class.

Use of any individual chassis also earns XP, even when utilised by either your co-op partner or the AI. As they complete milestones, you’ll earn chunks of XP for each to improve things like acceleration, max speed and more.

Then there are Kerenskies – another type of virtual currency that allows you to buy additional Battle Mechs to assign to the rest of your squad, or to buy specific weapons to adjust the loadout of your preferred Mech, so you can fine tune your walking weapon of mass destruction to your liking. You can focus on a Pulse Laser build, or perhaps something more ballistic weapon-based.

Either way, it’s up to you – though as always, things like heat, ammunition and your weapon groups will need to be managed, configured and planned for before you drop into a fight. You don’t want to be adjusting things while under fire.

The developers have also added a more accessible ‘Omnipod’ system, designed to replace an entire build of any chosen Mech wholesale, and replace it with an alternative variant. These can be unlocked with the same Mech Chassis XP used to level up various attributes of your Mech, so be careful how much you spend and on what. Pleasingly when playing in co-op, your squad can choose to level up what they like – as long as they have their Star Commander’s permission of course.

All in all, there’s a nice amount of depth here, though some of it feels a little undercooked. Evasion is such a key feature to upgrade on your pilots, (especially to avoid your AI squad mates being battered by the enemy) but is also the most expensive one to level up, leaving the other areas feeling under-utilised at first, even though it all sort of shakes out by the end of the campaign.

Some mechs can also have special abilities added, like the MASC, which appears to supercharge your mech so it’s lightning fast – but it also causes progressive damage to it’s entire structure, so after playing around with it once or twice, I never used it in battle.

Strapped in

MechWarrior 5: Clans is undoubtedly the most accessible and approachable game in the franchise. In what many die-hard MechWarrior fans will consider blasphemy, I played the entire game with the modernised control scheme, which is the default setup, and on an Xbox pad to boot (I’m a console kid at heart, sue me).

In a nutshell, it plays and feels like a slightly heavier first person shooter, with your Mech’s upper torso locked, and movement aligning to where you’re aiming. I mentioned it in my preview, but this is where that dash of MechAssault-flavour comes in. It feels very ‘arcadey’, especially when compared to a more conventional MechWarrior control setup.

Movement, both in acceleration and deceleration are both dependent on whether you’re moving the thumbstick or not, and your Mech won’t continue going forward as it would if you’d set a specific speed. Set your view to 3rd person, and it almost feels like you’re playing a new MechAssault, albeit one with a lot more depth.

Of course, you can turn all this off (even when using a controller) and have the upper torso independent to the direction of the Mech itself, operating it far more like a tank’s main gun, your forward movement unimpeded by your aim. And yes, the game supports a HOTAS set up, if you’re chasing maximum immersion.

Having said that, the accessibility of MechWarrior 5: Clans does cost us some of that sim-like feel. The cockpit view (my preferred viewpoint) is great, but I would have liked to see the HUD moved to the in-game instruments instead, rather than the standard overlay we get across the board.

This is a multiple-planet spanning adventure, where you’ll see your Star deployed as the story demands, with Clan Smoke Jaguar taking the fight to the Inner Sphere. You’ll face off against pirate groups and legendary houses across a nice variety of environments.

Deserts, lush valleys, desolate moons are all on display here, and mostly look pretty good, though I found the environmental quality to seemingly take a dip as the game progresses, with some of the latter planets not looking out of place on much older hardware. Large bodies of water in particular look lacklustre to say the least.

Regardless, it’s still the nicest a MechWarrior game has ever looked, which makes some of the simpler texture work or art look all the more jarring when it crops up.

The overall sense of scale too, is hit and miss. As I mentioned in my preview, I’m never quite sure just how ‘big’ the Mech I’m controlling actually is. The scale of these machines is better communicated to the player from within the cockpit, but in third person, trees look to small, and grass looks to big.

There are a few city-like environments within which you do battle, and honestly, the skyscrapers and more urban buildings look pretty ugly and are very basic, even if there is some rudimentary destruction on display. It’s hard to put it all into words, but the scale just isn’t quite right, and it does take away from the overall sense of immersion.

Thankfully, sound and effects are much improved from the preview, with lasers, gauss and auto cannons sounding wonderfully punchy as my Mech stomps across the Battlefield, dealing death to the enemy.

There are some occasionally-wonky animations that play when Mech’s are destroyed, with the battered chassis simply flopping to the floor in an almost ragdoll way, or standing still, a mere burnt out husk. Occasionally, you’ll catch them just sort of disappear or melt into the floor, which looks a little strange.

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Xbox Consoles

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Mission variety is as good as it can be in a game about shooting giant walking tanks, with each planet offering different mission types, from Assault, Investigation, Defence and Patrol. All of them will invariably end in you shooting at someone, but hey, it’s the journey, not the destination.

Enemy variety isn’t just limited to Mechs either – you’ll face off against a variety of more standardised tanks, large ‘Gazelle’ dropships, bombers and more. Importantly, unlike MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, none of what you play is procedurally generated. It’s all built from the ground up.

Sometimes missions will have you scanning enemy Mechs for specific data, or hunting for weapon caches in large environments. Other times you’ll be performing routine inspections or defending an important installation. The narrative, which persists throughout the game, isn’t just saved for very fancy cutscenes.

Your Star will regularly engage in conversation throughout, their faces popping up on your HUD to deliver exposition or character building as necessary. The voice acting is mostly good, bar the odd one of two dud lines. Regardless, the ethos and attitude of the Clan Smoke Jaguar is well delivered, with a proud warrior streak and a massive superiority complex on display regularly.

Battlefield Tactics

The Battlegrid is a live satellite display of the battlefield, where you can direct your Star to attack or take up a position in real time. On paper, this sounds like a great idea – but in practice, it’s something I rarely used.

Each AI pilot can be directed individually or the entire group can be given a broad order, be it to form up, take a position or attack. As fancy and nice as it looks, if you’re playing in full five-player co-op, it’s unlikely you’ll ever use it.

The only real purpose it did serve for me was to direct a particularly damaged AI Mech to a repair bay to get patched up on occasion. If you’re playing solo, perhaps there is more depth to it, but I’m currently not sold on how useful it really is.

A full Star of five human players should have no real issues in making their way through the campaign on normal difficulty. Most of the time any tactical approach (what little there is) is to shoot an enemy at it’s weakest point – usually the legs. The AI, (either friendly or unfriendly) typically won’t do that, instead aiming for a Mech’s arms instead, which can get a little frustrating if you’re on the receiving end.

The AI doesn’t do much more than shoot at you, with prejudice. Sometimes the game will have long range Mechs deployed on the outskirts to take shots at you, but for the most part, they’ll just come runnin’ and gunnin’ for you directly.

Typically, the most utilised command feature is the Command Wheel, which is a couple of button presses to command all units to form up on me as required, or to focus fire on my active target.

This would usually result in an absolute cacophony of gunfire all aimed at my chosen victim, putting an end to whatever I deemed to be the highest threat on the Battlefield in short order. Rinse and repeat.

You can also repeat missions using the ‘Simpod’ within the games barracks, allowing you to experiment with other Mechs and replay missions again from the entire campaign and perhaps make some alternate choices…

Revival

Whether you’ll enjoy MechWarrior 5: Clans depends very much on your own personal tastes. If you’re an existing BattleTech or MechWarrior fan, I think you’ll adore this latest entry in the franchise. If your preference is centred around the more simulator-like aspects of the series, that adoration will be mostly reserved for MechWarrior 5: Clans excellent narrative.

The gameplay is at the very least serviceable and quite often, genuinely fun. As a more general MechWarrior fan, I really enjoyed playing through the story and it’s planet spanning adventures. If it’s a twitchy, fast shooter you’re after, then I would say this one isn’t for you.

Equally, with such a strong focus on narrative, and a simplification of the more sim-like elements, it may leave die-hard BattleTech fans feeling a bit let down with a far more arcade-like MechWarrior game then perhaps they wanted.

The accessibility and approachability of MechWarrior 5: Clans then, may come at a cost – at least for now. It may just however, lead to a mainstream rejuvenation the series so sorely deserves, and with its launch into Xbox Game Pass, bring a whole new generation into our Sibko.

If there’s any developer that deserves to continue that charge into the 32nd Century, it’s Piranha Games.

Review code provided by the Publisher.