MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries - Chaos Reign DLC

Had a great time (still am) with this one! Got me re-hooked on everything battletech again. First part was a greag nostalgia throwback and really enjoyable, and the rest is just "more mw5". New mechs varients and extended clan presence/gear has been great even in vanilla playthrough and I'm finding myself looping around to all previous content/missions just to keep enjoying it (which i rarily did with past dlcs!) Asking price for me easily covered and given me genuine fun for many more hours (and counting). Shame about layoffs... you can feel near the tailend of the dlc things start getting more sparse on an otherwise strong start, but there still clearly a ton of love and passion that went into this one. Hope those folks laid off find new homes quickly where their passion and creativity will get the respect they deserve and trult hoping thus won't be the end of Mechwarrior 5 and onwards :( (you can tell with this and Clans they have so much planned still) If only steam would bump Mw5 onto its headline for a weekend, and maybe PGI offer a free weekend every once in a while to show people what the BT universe can truly offer and bring new life into the hidden gem it is (universe and game alike!).

Well, the story is good. I actually was around when the Sumerset Anima was on TV. Not sure what QoL improvements they are talking about. Because: Still pathing problems - lance mates and enemy still get stuck on rocks - pathing problems Lance mates still don't use jump jets Lance mates still lock on to targets that are super far away and not what is the closest threat Lance mates still try to stay in formation and show their butts to the enemy rather than use reverse Enemy still doesn't drop in Star elements ( though to be fair they do a few times in the campaign at the end, but still don't in general gameplay ) The maps are so small and tight the enemy doesn't get its long range advantage, they still drop right on top of you and get destroyed in nothing flat And now the IS gets flying hvy combat suits ... well at least both sides have it now I guess ... next we will have flying hovering battlemechs...oh wait...LAM's ... Walls still count as infrastructure so you don't have to destroy the actual buildings to achieve mission goals in some missions To be honest IS mechs are tougher than Clan mechs in my opinion. Their hit boxes, especially the head on some clan mechs, are huge. And I could go on and on with all the problems and bugs since launch. Well the good news is the clans don't run and hide anymore, so I guess that is something. It would be cool if the player actually participated in a Bachal. And we get more than 12 missions out of it. So there is that too. Now if they would just give us a real mech lab. I burned through this in about 6 to 8 hours on the highest difficulty. You decide if that is worth it for you. Good story though, was like a blast in the past for me. Hopefully you will keep doing that, there are lots of great stories in the mythos of Battletech.

A must play expansion for MW5! This expansion has my favorite missions to date in the game, even better than Shadow of Kerenky. The missions in SOK were max difficulty, which have their pluses and minuses. But these missions have lower tonnage limits while still providing a challenge against the clans. It struck a much better balance IMO. And all the new mechs and weapons added are a must have!

This DLC may appear short, due to its structure, but it's a great love letter to Battletech. The campaign portion of this is a cinematic homage to Battletech the animated series. It is nostalgic, well executed, and fantastic. However it may initially make the DLC come off as short. This is because the rest of the DLC is spread out across pop-up missions, which is not initially conveyed. One must pull some other threads to get the rest of the DLC unlocks. It's a decent collecting of classic mechs and opportunities. Definitely recommended to any fan of the IP.

Playing Shadow of Kerensky and then Chaos Reign was fun. I really like all of the cutscenes, makes the game standout when comparing to other games of similar scale. Looking forward to more.

Who knows in years when the next Mechwarrior 6 comes out considering how long it took from Mechwarrior 4 to 5. So I want to own all the DLCs for nostalgia from childhood. As it could be a very long time for another battletech game. Shadow of Kerensky DLC was a far bigger leap in content than this DLC though. Just felt that this DLC should be of been priced lower appropriately in this regard. The main cinematic campaign was very short of couple of hours to continue story and advance years, but felt like a side story continuation rather than something bigger at stake compared to last DLC. There are some mini-campaigns but no different from short high reward quests and no cinematics. Shadow of Kerensky, Chaos Reign. Lots of mechs and weapons. Big leap forward. But unfortunate the lancemate AI all these years still struggle. I think it would be better to have procedural maps with more passable terrain for AI sake or least optional setting.

If you enjoy Mechwarrior 5, you'll enjoy this DLC. Cinematics are in line with the updated ones in Shadow of Kerensky DLC, which puts them more in line with the Mechwarrior 5: Clans cinematics. If you have any nostalgia for the old Battletech cartoon, this has some of it. (I never saw it myself, but I'm well aware of it) The Campaign was a little on the short side, having finished it in maybe 3-4ish hours on normal, using a previous save (which I always do). The missions, while fun, didn't super stand out compared to some missions in other DLCs. Voice acting continues to be better. The final mission max tonnage was <300 to give you an idea of the mechs they balanced around you using. I usually like them in the 350ish range. Overall, I personally don't feel like it was worth 20 dollars, but they still continue to improve the game even if you don't own the DLC so with that in mind, I'm not personally bothered and it could be argued that it's worth it. Mileage may vary, obviously. ~70-90fps fairly consistant with my rig at 4k and highest settings. I had a stutter here and there but I alt tab a lot and that doesn't help. I didn't encounter any bugs or issues, but I played this after the first patch post DLC.

This DLC was very short. It could be completed in a few hours time. I didn't much care for the House Marik quest line, and really just wanted more of the fight with the Jade Falcon clan and travel outside the inner sphere. I was expecting this multi-system set of jumps out side of the periphery, in clan controlled space, and it was exactly one system. No suspense, no build up. No charge forward. Just the one system felt anti-climactic for me. The house Marik stuff felt tacked on. I would save this for on-sale only, wait till this DLC is like 5-7 dollars and then it becomes more or less worth the price. I thought based on the cutscenes and conversation between your outfit and Herr Kommandant, that things would be longer, that there would be more to do, related to that, beyond the recon. Like taking the fight to the Jade Falcon in Clan controlled outer-periphery. I am of a mixed opinion on this DLC, because I feel that it's too short for the asking price, and should have provided more story compared with other DLCs I have purchased, in this franchise, and others.

Overall I think it completes a really good game package. The quality jump is jarring for the last two DLCs, thanks to MW5 clans cutscene tech. The main campaign is pretty good but feels like it ends before things get interesting and I echo the guy who said they had to push it out because they don't have the manpower/finances to do it justice. Shadow of Kerensky has a much better campaign arc and feels fully realized. Overall buy if you like Mechwarrior, this IP might die if we don't.

It is amazing what this company continues to improve on and pour out more DLCs. No one has given this much love to Battletech in ages. Mechwarrior 5 has aged like fine wine. The only tragedy is the publishers and corporate funding that seems to cut the talent and resources of these developers, despite them delivering every single time. Good work PGI. You've made an old MechWarrior happy.