MechWarrior 5: Clans

MechWarrior 5: Clans was provided by Piranha Games Inc. for review. Thank you!

The MechWarrior franchise had been on a bit of a hiatus until recently, with the last clan-focused entry having released in 1995, but now we are back. If you're like me, you may have only played the more recent MechAssault games, with 3 of them being released after MechWarrior 4. But MechWarrior is a whole different breed of game, whereas the MechAssault games are arcadey in nature, MechWarrior leans heavily into realism, presenting us with a Mech Simulation, something we don't get to see too often.

MechWarrior, MechAssault, and other assorted game series and novels are all set in the "BattleTech Universe." As such, many of the events happening have already happened before, and MechWarrior 5: Clans puts a new perspective on it. In this case, you are viewing it from the perspective of a Star Commander (essentially a Squad Leader) among the Snake Jaguar clan, one of the clans that are waging war against the 5 Houses of the Inner Sphere.

And if you have followed the other games in the series, this is the first to feature the Snake Jaguar clan as the protagonists.

A lot of exposition is left out in the game. Despite the story having plenty of cutscenes, these mostly focus on the interpersonal relationships of your squad and command. The overarching story is left barebones, other than the fact that the Clans left the Inner Sphere long ago to avoid a conflict but are now returning as they believe the Inner Sphere Houses have found them and will want to fight. I presume the developers expect you to be versed in BattleTech lore to fully understand the circumstances behind all of this, as it is not explained in the game.

The story's cutscenes are all pre-rendered and aim for hyper-realism. Unfortunately, while the technology used is clearly impressive, it leaves you with that sort of uncanny valley feeling about some of the characters' faces. There's something just not quite right about how they look sometimes, especially around the eyes, and it left me a bit disconcerted in some cutscenes.

Ultimately, the story gives me very Warhammer-esque vibes. With the Clans feeling like they are "righteous" and doing the right thing by invading the Inner Sphere Houses, you are left questioning whether that is the case. You don't get to hear anything from the Inner Sphere Houses, with nearly all dialogue being from members of the Smoke Jaguar Clan. Therefore, you are only presented with one side of the narrative, which is always a red flag. But, you're a soldier, you're there to fight, not think.

That being said, I did enjoy the story. The voice-acting may seem off in places, but there's also a "proper" way to speak in the Clans, and it's possible this stilted way of speaking was a direction the voice actors chose to follow. But in general, I give it a thumbs up.

But, strange-looking warmongerers with dubious reasons for fighting aside, MechWarrior 5: Clans presents us with fantastic Mech simulation.

The Mechs in the game feel heavy. This doesn't play like your average Third or First-Person Shooter (you can switch camera views); you will be sliding your mouse like crazy repeatedly across your desk to get your hunk of steel to look 5 degrees to the left. Movement is slow, which means you have to think strategically. If you're facing the wrong direction, that's valuable seconds lost where the enemy is striking you, and you cannot strike back. Even using your Jump Jets to gain height is sluggish and momentum-based.

This feeling of heaviness translates into the weapons, too. Whether you're firing your missiles, your Gauss Cannon, machine guns, or one of the many lasers on offer, each shot feels like it has an impact and does real damage, even if you miss half of your shots. Having your screen fill up with visual effects from your different weapons all firing off is pretty exhilarating.

However, firing weapons is where things get a little complicated. Your weapons are separated into Weapon Groups, and the first Mech you pilot has 4 Weapon Groups assigned: one for machine guns, one for a laser, one for missiles, and another for melee. Unfortunately, as my mouse has no side buttons that I can use, I only had LMB and RMB assigned to 2 Weapon Groups, meaning I had to use the 3 and 4 keys on my keyboard to fire my 3rd and 4th weapons.

This isn't too bad when you're using WASD to move, but it's probably a recipe to get RSI in the future. So I would recommend you get a mouse with some side buttons that are easily pressable for this game or another control method that has lots of accessible buttons. The game does have controller support though, so if you decide to use a gamepad, it should feel relatively comfortable.

The combat in MechWarrior 5: Clans is easily the game's biggest highlight. With destructible buildings and objects, plenty of different weaponry, a diverse array of enemies, and the ability to both lose your parts and destroy parts off enemy mechs, the game shines.

Most missions don't offer you a chance to repair during them, so you'll want to play to your strengths. Have a laser setup that's long-ranged? You're best off hanging back and picking off enemies before they close in to minimize the damage you take. But if you're equipped with close-range machine guns, use buildings and terrain as cover to get as close as possible before the fighting starts, ensuring a quick end to the battle. Either way, at the end of the mission, you'll end up back on your ship, facing the consequences of any damage your squad took during the mission.

And now it's time to play XCOM! Just joking, but seriously, the base mechanics of MechWarrior 5: Clans are very reminiscent of XCOM 2. Upon finishing a mission, you'll be able to use Technicians to repair your mechs, including hiring more Technicians to do more substantial repairs. Any damage that can't be repaired is carried on into the next battle. Alternatively, you can buy a new mech, swap it out, and leave the old one in the hanger for repair.

The same goes for equipment and weaponry, which allows you to buy new gear for your mechs and swap out different components so you can get your load out just how you like it. Want to fit loads of lasers and heatsinks so you can deal mass damage in one blow? Go for it! Or do you prefer to fit machine guns along with ammo reels? You can do that too.

On top of this, you have experience points for both your Mechs and squad members, allowing them to level up and enhance their abilities and skills, such as turning rate (much needed), weapon cooldowns, and evasion ability. You can also research new technologies with your scientists, who function similarly to the technicians, and you can upgrade things such as weapon range, cooldowns, heat dissipation, and more!

You'll also unlock new mechs as you level up and progress through the game, unlocking higher classification of mechs beyond the "Light" and "Medium" mechs you start with, which essentially allows for more "tonnage," meaning more equipment and weapons can be fitted to them.

In some ways, MechWarrior 5: Clans is an in-depth Mech sim. The game aims for realism on all fronts, aiming for photo-realism with its pre-rendered cutscenes, realistic physics for its mechs, and a comprehensive system of upgrades and equipment load-outs to back it all up.

The game also has a 5 player co-op mode, letting you play through the story with up to 4 friends taking the place of your squad members. However, if you are playing alone, you will have AI on your team. Unfortunately, the AI is sometimes as dumb as a bag of rocks.

This is particularly noticeable on a stealth mission near the beginning of the game. While the friendly AI seems competent at fighting, they don't seem so competent at anything else. They did not attempt to hide themselves, thus triggering the alarm and making everything more difficult. While they do make some attempts to steer clear of alarmed barriers, they will sometimes just walk through them and trigger the alarm. It was infuriating.

As it is, MechWarrior 5: Clans is a difficult game. I played the first few missions on Normal difficulty, but even then, my AI teammates were still sometimes destroyed, and I got to a critical level once or twice. Veterans of the series will probably still face challenges from the hardest difficulty, and newcomers should be able to get by in Story mode or Normal if they feel up to a challenge.

It's also worth noting that the Story mode is the only mode in the game. There are no multiplayer deathmatches or versus modes, just the campaign, which you can play solo or multiplayer with up to 5 players.

I also experienced some crashes on occasion. They were always at the end of a mission and generally increased in frequency as I progressed through the game. Fortunately, the game always saves at the end of each mission, and the crash seemed to happen directly after a save, so no progress was lost, but it did require a reboot of the game after some missions.

MechWarrior 5: Clans - Steam Deck Performance

The game is brutally difficult to run on Steam Deck, and while it does boot, I never got the game to exceed 25 FPS on the Steam Deck, thus making it unplayable.

Even on my PC, which I played on to write this review, which has an RX 6600 XT and a Ryzen 5600, which falls just under the "Recommended" system requirements, it still dropped below 30 FPS on the lowest graphical settings with FSR upscaling from 860p to 1440p. In extreme circumstances in later missions, it dropped to single-digit FPS for a few seconds here and there. This is likely a VRAM issue, as the RX 6600 XT only has 8GB of VRAM, and the game seems to demand more than that at times.

I'm unsure if there are some issues at play here, as the performance seems pretty dire, but one thing is for certain, I don't think we'll be playing MechWarrior 5: Clans on the Steam Deck in the future.

Accessibility:

MechWarrior 5: Clans doesn't have many accessibility options, but it does allow you to disable camera shaking, aim assist, and subtitled dialogue in both gameplay and cutscenes.

Conclusion:

MechWarrior 5: Clans is a Mech game for Mech fans. If you want a game that portrays these mechs for the whatever-ton steel beasts they are, then this is the game for you. The storyline takes a bit of a backstep, but the characters are interesting enough, and the gameplay more than makes up for a somewhat vague storyline.

There are some issues, such as the friendly AI doing some things that will make your life difficult, and the performance seems far worse than it should be, but if you have a PC to brute-force through the performance issues, the game overall is solid. I would have given MechWarrior 5: Clans an 8/10 for gameplay, but the severe performance issues and crashes lower it to a 7/10 gameplay score for me.

Unfortunately, the above-mentioned performance means that the game is unplayable on the Steam Deck, and given how poor the performance is, I don't think it'll just be a case of "a patch will fix it" for this one.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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