My 250 Hour Review

[ArcherMagnus]

To be exact. 10 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes, 37 seconds according to the devil, Epic. So 254 hours.

First off, I played MWO, but I never played the other MechWarrior games. I like MWO and got sucked into buying some mech packs, but I found that game stagnated overall. Play the same few maps, everyone NASCAR, neckbeards ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ at each other. However, I liked MWO for building out mechs and testing them in combat, which is the highlight of MechWarrior 5.

Story: Average bad video game thing happens, then you slowly track down the bad people. The story is very average and flat.

Voice-over acting: Adequate. Thankfully you don't have to hear most of the cast too often, and the person who played Ryana (who you hear each mission) did a great job.

Graphics: Adequate. If I didn't know the game came out a year ago and you told me the game came out 5-10 years ago, I would believe you.

Sounds: Below par. The sound mixing makes everything sound un-dynamic. Like your lance footsteps are as loud as your mech's footsteps, thankfully, there are some good mods that really help. See below.

Gameplay: Solid! I play in first-person, and the gameplay is great EXCEPT when you have to walk all the way across an empty map in winding canyons. A mod that speeds uptime is a lifesaver. But once the shooting starts, it's great. However, there is only a handful type of missions, so it is repetitive. And beware of getting stuck, sometimes going down small cliffs will trap you. So you will have to restart the mission or fail it.

Updates: What updates? No.

New features: Lol, no.

Difficulty: Some of the missions are crazy hard out of nowhere; just save and save often. Like the last mission, I had to cheese hardcore with four Atlases. With mods, you can have better armor which would be really helpful.

DLC: Screw PGI for taking over a year to release a DLC that they finished months ago. I get it that a pandemic is happening, and they are a small company, but their communication sucks. Their marketing team sucks; their lack of involvement on their Discord sucks. From the little that we have seen from the first DLC, it looks underwhelming. For yanking the game from Steam and going with Epic for the first year+, you have done hardly anything to engage with their fans. It's like a wet fart to the nose, just terrible.

Mods: Well hopefully PGI doesn't ♥♥♥♥ this up; mods are the best part of the game. Wait wait wait, before I talk about modding, let's talk about customization.

Customization: One would think that you would at least have the same level of mech customization that you did in MWO, but one would be deadass wrong. In the base game, you can't swap engines, armor types, and the hardpoints are lore-based, so lacking (which you might like). Again, the base game is adequate but not a step up from MWO; it's a big step down.

Mods: Mods are the BEST part of this game. Hopefully, PGI has given modder new tools to make sure their mods will work. Mods like "Reloaded" get this game up to a level worth playing beyond the boring story. If PGI dropped the ball here, I would say don't buy the game.

There are many great mods on the Nexus; here are a few that I personally like.

-Reloaded: Adds a ton of new mechs varients, hardpoints, armor sets, engines. It really should be in the base game.
-Yet Another Reloaded Mech: Even more mechs for Reloaded.
-Yet Another Weapon: More weapons.
-Yet Another Weapon Clan: Clan weapons.
-Enhanced HUD or 3D HUD, I like the 3D.
-TableTopRulez series is great for making the AI less dumb.
-Remove JumpShip Animation: removed an unnecessary, annoying animation that makes travel slower.
-Cockpit sound overhaul: Improves the SFX and mixing a hundredfold.
-Mech Special Abilities: adds Coolshot, arty strikes, etc.
-More Mech Salvage: improves chances of mechs being salvageable.
-Speed up time: makes getting across the map less of a chore.

I use a lot more mods, but for me, those are the big ones. Your play style might be totally different; I lean towards the MWO side, while you might be more lore-driven.

My game ratings.
Without mods: 5/10
With mods: 8/10

It's a perfectly adequate game. Not bad, not stellar, just good enough to be worth your time (maybe). Hopefully you find this helpful. :)

[Pixel Peeper]

You've really kicked the beehive, Commander.

...actually that review is pretty damn accurate.

What I really want, though, is a way to set the AI pilots to "target vehicles first". I want to fight mechs, but as the game is right now you're just doing cleanup while the AI has all the fun in a most inefficient way.

[Moon Moon]

Yeah, it seems to be just an okay game from the start. Story is lacking, but eh, much like BattleTech, it could be modded in though. It's not a 50$ game though, and I ain't paying more than 25$ with the DLC included.

Problem is the controversy behind it all. PGI and their scummy-ass practices, that led to the 1-year exclusivity, the extension of said exclusivity, and paywalling the DLC that should have been free from the start.

As we have seen in MWO, they aren't that good of a developer, but you know what, that is okay. I would have been lenient with them, because I am at that point that I don't expect much from them. But my god that Epic Deal, and subsequent delay just "because CP2077" when it's clearly not, I don't have any patience from them anymore.

[Shai`tan]

"Graphics: Adequate. If I didn't know the game came out a year ago and you told me the game came out 5-10 years ago, I would believe you."

The game looks absolute AZZ!!!!!! if I were the Devs I wouldn`t release without a MAJOR visuals overhaul, and way way waaaaay better Animations. This is a 20 buck title without. Budget game if there ever was one. It looked bad when Epic released it. lol

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by Shai`tan:

"Graphics: Adequate. If I didn't know the game came out a year ago and you told me the game came out 5-10 years ago, I would believe you."

The game looks absolute AZZ!!!!!! if I were the Devs I wouldn`t release without a MAJOR visuals overhaul, and way way waaaaay better Animations. This is a 20 buck title without. Budget game if there ever was one. It looked bad when Epic released it. lol

The game uses MWO, and MWO was released in 2013 (not sure when development started, but it could be ten years ago, yes).

Personally I think it's fine, but more importantly, this development team is small and slow, they don't have the time or resources to redo all the graphics and fix the game at the same time.

At best the assets from MWO would be updated using MWO resources and they would port the assets to MW5, but I doubt that's going to happen.

[EgoSchlüter]

what about difficulty? i kinda read, like if you get too much damage you dont earn enough money to repair mechs and you´re savegame is kinda lost then.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by EgoSchlüter:

what about difficulty? i kinda read, like if you get too much damage you dont earn enough money to repair mechs and you´re savegame is kinda lost then.

It's... technically possible?

But a reasonably competent player would make quite a lot of money on the vast majority of missions. Additionally, you would normally keep a bunch of money in reserve in case you stumble upon a rare or hero mech. Even if you had a bunch of bad luck (bough a bunch of expensive stuff to eat through your money reserves, then failed a few missions in a row somehow), you could still sell a bunch of equipment (or, if it comes to it, even a mech) to repair whichever mechs you need to run missions, and you could choose to grind a few easy low-level missions to build money back up if you really, really needed to.

Realistically, it's just not going to happen unless you suck a LOT. And even then you could just restart missions or reload saves until you get it right.

In practical terms... it's not a valid concern.

[sam]

Do not skip the Coyote mission pack mod. This mod ads 5 new mission types, Battlefield, Attack and Defend, Recon, Patrol, and Rescue. These missions really diversify the game.

[Metadragon]

Having ignored this game until this very moment. It looks a lot like Harebrained Schemes version with MWO combat.

This sounds like a dream to me but you say its pretty flat storywise and repetitive. I hope it meets some of my expectations

[Cptn_Miller]

informative review, especially the mods, ty

summery: steam release is their last ditch cash payout, don't expect any patches / engine upgrades, game is fun with mods, not worth more than $20.

[ZeroFate]

Great review and on point. This is a very easy game to skip unless you can catch it on a steep sale 50% off or better. It pains me to say this as well since ive always loved the Mechwarrior franchise. Sadly PGI was the absolute worst choice to allow to build this IP.

[Canniballistic]

*Complains about 11 things, mostly core gameplay features, praises 1*
"5/10"

Do you work for IGN?

[ArcherMagnus]

1 out 12, with mods 4 out of 12. Better @canniballistic ?

[Diarmuhnd]

Originally posted by ArcherMagnus:

To be exact. 10 days, 14 hours, 38 minutes, 37 seconds according to the devil, Epic. So 254 hours.
...
My game ratings.
Without mods: 5/10
With mods: 8/10

It's a perfectly adequate game. Not bad, not stellar, just good enough to be worth your time (maybe). Hopefully you find this helpful. :)

Thanks for your review.

[Solarrus]

"Gameplay sollid" in MWO. MW5 is much worse. It's.... plastic.