Clans Heads in a New Direction

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Mechwarrior 5: Clans Preview Listen Up, Commander Strap In 40 Tons of Steel Jump into the Cockpit

Mechwarrior 5: Clans Preview

You know, it’s been a pretty good few years for fans of mech games. There was Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries in 2019, Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon in 2023, Gundam Breaker 4 this last month, and now Mechwarrior 5: Clans is lumbering over the horizon. If you’re into virtually piloting a stories-high walking death machine, you’ve gotta be feeling the love. I had the chance to preview a slice of Mechwarrior 5: Clans and came away impressed and a bit surprised.

Listen Up, Commander

Mechwarrior 5: Clans is not DLC or a sequel. Think of it as a partner to MW5: Mercenaries, the yin to Clans’ yang or something. It’s a standalone game. Clans follows in the tradition of both Mechwarrior 2 and 4, both of which had Mercenaries and Clans versions. When developer Piranha Games was given the opportunity to make the next numbered Mechwarrior game, they made an open-world, procedurally generated sandbox-type experience called Mercenaries. Following tradition, the next game simply had to be Mechwarriors 5: Clans.

Mechwarrior 5: Clans is a narrative-driven, linear experience that, like all the MechWarrior games, takes place in the BattleTech universe. Birthed in the 1980s when the Cold War still raged, BattleTech began as a tabletop game before leaping to the digital realm (not to mention movies, television shows, and novels). Most of BattleTech and MechWarrior take place in a hard-sci-fi future a millennia or so out from our own. While BattleTech incorporates some common science fiction tropes like lasers, energy weapons, and the ability to travel faster than light, aliens make only rare appearances. In the BattleTech universe, humans continue to fight humans for control.

Strap In

Mechs in Gundam and Armored Core look like walking tanks, but they are fast and agile. In Gundam games especially, they simply control like action RPG characters in mecha suits with the ability to dodge, block, and parry. In contrast, the mechs in MechWarrior feel absolutely massive, and their movements are deliberate and weighty. Translating that reality has always been at the core of MechWarrior.

In MechWarrior 5: Clans you play as Jayden, a relatively untested Clan Smoke Jaguar pilot. At the conclusion of the tutorial chapter, you are promoted to a leadership role. As Star Commander Jayden leads a quintet of pilots, each with a strong identity. Not long after, your group is sent planet side to provide tactical support for a larger mission and the campaign kicks into gear. The campaign can be played solo or in multiplayer co-op. While Jayden can control his squad and give orders from the overhead strategic battlefield view, he can instantly jump into any of the mechs. Even when Jayden didn’t issue direct orders, the AI squad did a good job.

I’ve only played a small part of the campaign, which is heavy with jargon and full of scenes we’ve seen in countless war movies. I wouldn’t call the narrative and dialogue cliche, but I do hope the campaign develops a bit more identity. From what I’ve played the voice work and writing are generally effective if varied in quality. Anyone unfamiliar with the BattleTech universe and/or MechWarrior might be confused by the context. Clans is asking players to invest in the story, after all. All that said, fans of the BattleTech world will find it authentically translated.

40 Tons of Steel

Story aside, the power fantasy of piloting a walking tank with arms, opposable thumbs, and a battleship’s worth of armament remains fully intact. Controlling a mech is still somewhere between piloting a helicopter and captaining a battleship and it feels great. There are ways to fine-tune the controls and difficulty. This is MechWarrior and complexity is part of the equation, but even newbs should be able to find a comfortable level between a sim-level challenge and arcade-like action.

In between battles, Jayden and crew head back to the HQ. There, the player upgrades and assigns weapons, armor, and makes cosmetic changes to the squad’s mechs. Pretty standard stuff for the franchise and the genre. I say that, but the level of depth in this part of the game is impressive. Anyone who gets deep into an RPG’s stats and options will be excited. The player can thoroughly kit out a large number of mechs, balancing basic aspects like weight, armor, and armament, but upgrade the characteristics of the squad members. It’s a lot.

The MechWarrior games have never struck me as being graphical showcases but from what I’ve seen so far, things are looking good. There’s plenty of detail in the mechs and the way they take damage. The environments in the demo were varied and provided lots of options during combat. Human characters and faces are maybe a baby step down from state-of-the-art, but not distractingly bad. I did have some concerns about the synth-heavy musical score. It didn’t feel like it added much to the energy of the action sequences. The game is still being polished, so we’ll wait to see if the audio gets a bit more punch in the final release.

Jump into the Cockpit

I’ve always appreciated how MechWarrior faithfully represents the mech-piloting experience (I assume) and I liked MechWarrior 5: Clans’ shift into a story-focused format. It probably doesn’t represent a permanent change in direction, but that’s ok. MechWarrior 5: Clans does an excellent job of balancing narrative, combat, and a crazy-deep level of customization. I had a blast blasting away enemy mechs and toying with loadouts. I’m looking forward to the game’s final release on October 16, 2024.

Thank you for keeping it locked on COGconnected.