MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries
Meching good use of the things that they find
WE HAD TO CHECK, but it has indeed been 20 years since the last mainline MechWarrior game. MechWarrior4:Vengeance (which, confusingly, had a standalone expansion called Mercenaries) was a first-person mech sim based on BattleTech in which you shot the limbs off enemy mechs to reach mission objectives and pick up the parts as scrap with which to augment your own stompy killing machine.
Little has changed in MechWarrior 5, apart from the fact the game now runs happily in 4K, supports ray tracing and DLSS, and you have the choice of a thirdperson view. You’re a rookie pilot getting trained up when some bad guys attack, knock your father’s mech off a cliff, and damage his mercenary outfit in search of something you know nothing about. It’s a classic setup, forcing you to rebuild the unit and investigate what the attack was about before taking your revenge in an appropriately heavy metal manner. Your four-mech team can be filled out by computer players or real people online, and there’s a lot to love about it as your pilot’s hands mimic your inputs, and your mech roars into life.
Controller-users beware, however: the news that many PC gamers have eschewed keyboard and mouse for the console-owner’s best friend has not reached Piranha Games. Sure, you can walk around, aim, and fire with thumbsticks, but you have to go back to the keyboard to do something like reset your torso rotation; so much, in fact, it’s worth abandoning the controller and going back to WASD. There’s an option to change it, but the throttle control by default increases and sticks there until you lower it. It’s not always clear whether a stationary mech will lurch backward or forward either, thanks to torso rotation, and while you have free aim with the mouse, if you’ve rotated too far, your chest-mounted weapons can’t come to bear on a target.
It gets more complicated when you’re managing temperature, blaster ammo, jump jets, and armor. Keep your face toward the enemy while trying to get behind it to attack weaker rear armor, your legs going one way while your torso rotates and arm-mounted weaponry picks off aircraft coming in for an attack run, and you start to feel extremely powerful. Watch rocks fade into the ground as your mech stomps over them and you begin to wonder. Get damaged by fast-moving (but weak) tanks because your lasers are overheating and your AI teammates are happily walking into buildings, and you start to feel a bit silly.
Running your mercenary company adds a welcome layer of strategy, as you choose which solar systems to enter, which missions to take, how much salvage to bid for, and—eventually—which parts you actually need.
The glory of MechWarrior5 comes from blowing stuff up in the most efficient way, mixed with running a business on the side. It’s undeniable fun to dodge through the battlefield in a light, fast mech, damaging heavier suits just enough to bring them down so you can pick them up later. It’s also fun to use those salvaged bots, repaired and rearmed, to smash through enemy lines. But you may need to put some hours in first.
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries
MERCENARIES Huge stomping mechs firing lasers and missiles—what’s not to like?
ADVERSARIES Graphics could do with a tune-up; voice accents verge on ridiculous.
RECOMMENDED SPECS Ryzen 7 1700/Core i7-6700K; 16GB RAM; GTX 1070/RX Vega 56.
$50, http://mw5mercs.com, ESRB: Not rated