MechWarrior 5: Clans Steam Charts & Stats

Every mechwarrior game that comes out the mech customization gets more detailed and the gameplay gets dumbed down. I feel like I'm playing "big halo" more than piloting a robot. The writing is middle school tier and predictable as hell. But the game is still fun, mechs go brrrrr.

There has not been a better Mechwarrior experience. Excellent story and missions, great gameplay. Its better than even my rose coloured glasses view of mechwarrior 2. PGI have come a long way since that initial MW5 campaign, and now look so confident in how they deliver story content.

I am blown away with this game. First introduced to Battletech Universe with Mech Assualt on XBOX way back when and though it was pretty cool. Then Years Later with Battletech PC Game made by Hairbrained Schemes was also impressed and enjoyed. Then I've Played MW5: Mercs and was initially impressed with game play but felt it lacked (of Course) Story. Well that has Changed with Clans. Story telling was a breath of fresh air and very immersive with characters along with Ghost Bear DLC. I started reading the Battletech books because of this Clans with shed light on what was going on (Start with Battletech Jade Phoenix Trilogy to shed light on the Way of the Clans). Being a kid gamer who has grown up in the 90's the music is very nostalgic and well composed. Highly recommend if someone wants a game series steeped in lore and numerous ways to get into as well (there is also a Table Top Game thats Called Battletech where all of the started)

Is it a good mechwarrior game? Sure. Is Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries better? Way better.

Strap in with five lovable space fascists who talk like the dogs from 'Up' on their trail-blazing adventure to the Inner Sphere! In all seriousness, I loved MW5 Clans and am really enjoying the Ghost Bear expansion now. It's a lot of great fan service and a ton of lore distilled into a campaign. I'm here for it!

A strong entry in the recent series of Mechwarrior games made by Piranha Games. Enjoyable story, better tactical options. On my second playthrough now that they have added NG+

I remember playing mechwarrior 2 as a child all the time it being my favorite game for years. This game reminds me of those days the Nostalgia is fantastic. It is not perfect but if you are a fan of Mechwarrior 2 and havent played a mechwarrior game in a while and especially when its on sale I would not hesitate. It's not mercenaries and I wish it had some sort of free roam or simulation but besides that I am pleasantly surprised!

This game is just meh. I really like clan mechs a lot. This game was just not done well. The story starts out great and very very quickly becomes stale. I honestly feel like MechWarrior5 mercs is better then this game is almost every aspect. I guess get it on a deep sale if you like big stompy mechs, but don't expect much.

Always loved mechwarrior and battletech great game

[b]Gameplay[/b] The core gameplay loop doesn’t really deliver because: A. You can instantly repair all your mechs after each mission with little to no repercussions or cost (even if they get destroyed). B. All your meticulously built mechs almost instantly become redundant as you try to keep up with the forever-increasing tonnage demand. The game forces you into a limited selection of mechs to the point where, if you are not running 4 Dire Wolves once you unlock them, you are dramatically unoptimized and will likely melt from the sheer amount of damage you need to endure. C. Salvage and money almost mean nothing. You’ll have enough money to buy multiple sets of every mech at any point. And there’s no need for tactical play of shooting mech legs for salvage because you choose a determined amount of salvage after each mission to filter either into Mech, Weapon, or Equipment research. I suppose they are in a war and you have the funding to allocate costs as you please, but it just feels so unrewarding. The level design felt stale and unimaginative, with lots of repeated content instead of doing anything new outside the armored aircraft boss (which pops up 4 or 5 times throughout the game, and you hate to see it given how much of a bullet sponge it is). Which, by the way, how is it that we can shoot down a 200-ton Dropship no problem, but a simple gate blocks our path in most missions? Or why can’t we ever shoot down enemy Dropships entering the battlefield? We see a Rifleman shoot down one in a cinematic. I would like to have seen naval combat at least, to show these planets were throwing everything at the invading Clans. The addition of the scanner wasn’t interesting or enjoyable - it just felt like a chore that was shoehorned everywhere you go. There were a few memorable skirmishes I enjoyed, but most of the missions felt like an absolute slog - the last few missions especially. The mission briefings I found to be poorly done. I don’t recall a single mission where I understood my objective clearly after the briefing, to the point where I skipped them because it added nothing to my experience. Even the summary window afterward is just bloated with useless text that provides little to no instruction. Comparatively, MechWarrior 3 and 4 always made it abundantly clear. I think this is due to MechWarrior 5 not utilizing the maps well. The maps during the briefing I think are unclear, and all you have during the mission is the orbital map. But because the game puts you on train tracks the whole time, you never really need a map. It’s just one long hallway. In MechWarrior 3 and 4, you see those same maps from the briefing out on the field, so you already have that familiarity and understanding of the layouts, rather than trying to acclimate again based on two visually different maps. MechWarrior 3 even went to the effort of having drone footage of the actual map during the briefing, so when you play the mission you know what to look for. I would love to have seen the Elementals (I know it was initially planned and they eventually got added to Clan Ghost Bear DLC), but given how much they are referenced and described to be at your location and then never shown during gameplay felt immersion-breaking. I would also have liked to see more life on the planets. Everywhere you go feels abandoned and dead. The story is relatively short. I completed the game in under 30 hours. [b]Sound & Voice Acting[/b] Voice acting is great in the cinematic cutscenes, but everywhere else it feels like the voice actors don’t have the right context of what’s happening, so the inflections feel tonally off. I noticed the voice actors would constantly put emphasis on random words that had no contextual weight to them. Each reading felt like it was the first take, and I didn’t believe anything that was being said. The game often wants you to feel like more is happening than what is otherwise shown during gameplay. Like the riots on Edo City. I think they really should have focused on adding more sound design during the radio chatter, especially from the Elementals on the ground among the panicked civilians. There’s just no atmosphere when it needs it. The music is step in the right direction after Mercs, but I still kept it muted and played the Mechwarrior 2, 3, and 4 OST during gameplay. [b]Writing and Story[/b] The dialogue and writing during the cinematics I felt were of a high quality but fell flat everywhere else. I think a lot of the poor dialogue choices explained by the fact that the characters are literally children is no real scapegoat for the game, given MechWarrior 5: Mercs was a clear demonstration of Piranha Games’ standard when it comes to writing. A majority of the chatter during missions felt so annoying (as it did in Mercs) and sounded more like a bunch of teenagers playing Fortnite together on a couch. Compare this to the delivery in MechWarrior 3 and 4, and even BattleTech—you can hear how physically beaten up the MechWarriors are during skirmishes. But here you’re casually having an ideological debate whilst 3 Mad Cats are pounding you with LRM20s. I would like to have seen Liam intercept enemy radios and have the characters hear the mortified combatants who are overwhelmed and overrun. Really put their humanity into question. [b]Cinematics[/b] The cinematics are excellent. The writing excels here. So much work has been put into the directing, performance, camera, blocking, editing, lighting, and sound design. Some notable scenes, like the Edo City cinematic, and an epic space combat scene with mechs providing defensive support on the hull of Clan Wolf’s flagship, are remarkable works of art. I loved how expressive the mechs look given the directing choices - the Panther who engages a Mad Dog in Edo city - you never see the pilot but you can’t help but feel a sense of sadness and horror in the dishonour and atrocity it bears witness to. These are the kinds of sequences I love in the franchise. It felt reminiscent of the opening of MechWarrior 4. There is an earlier cinematic with Sara Weaver that felt like a homage to MechWarrior 2’s opening as she duels it out in a desert canyon with another mech. There were even a few monologues that felt just like MechWarrior 2’s intro of the Clans, which I appreciated a lot. There are also some great running motifs throughout, like the helmet Jayden receives from Nasir, and the use of contractions and how they are used in suggestive ways. I really enjoyed seeing the nuances of how the characters were dealing with the harsh realities of their Clan’s ideals. They approached themes of death, grieving, and mortality well. It’s easy to become desensitized to death because MechWarrior games tend to overuse the trope of your mentor dying within the first five minutes of the game, and death just feels really cheap and a poor plot device to move the story forward in a certain direction. But here it’s used very sparingly, and there’s a lot of weight and shock to it. Jayden felt a little inconsistent at moments. Generally very sympathetic but also aggressively xenophobic during gameplay. I couldn’t quite understand him. [b]Graphics[/b] Outside the cinematics, the graphics were… okay. I did notice some repeating textures, and nothing really ‘wowed’ me in terms of visuals. I still find the UI ugly. I would love for a real sim experience of all the UI to be built into the cockpit of the mech or just have a bit more polish. It all just feels a bit cheap, and the overlay icons look like royalty-free assets. Night vision just feels like a green filter. The game ran smoothly throughout my whole playtime with no bugs. There was one moment where I shot a VTOL with my dual UAC20 and it hilariously shot up into the sky. [b]Summary[/b] I think Piranha Games still have a lot of work to do here. [b]TLDR[/b] Watch the cutscenes on YouTube and give the game a pass.