MechWarrior 5: Clans by developer and publisher Piranha Games Inc.—PC (Steam) review written by Robert with a copy provided by the publisher.
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
MechWarrior 5: Clans is developed and published by Piranha Games, Inc. Thank you to Piranha Games for providing a free Steam key for the purpose of this review. MechWarrior 5: Clans is a return to the Clans of MechWarrior, the first time in 30 years! Lead your Star of MechWarriors in an expansive 30-hour+ campaign across multiple diverse planets and a wide range of mission types. Fans of the franchise will feel right at home in their mechs with MechWarrior 5: Clans as the strategic yet pulse-pounding combat pits you against the enemies of Clan Smoke Jaguar. Highly customizable mechs come to life in stunning quality that only Unreal 5 engine can provide, stomping through destructible environments have never looked so good!
Story-wise, MechWarrior 5 Clans takes no time in getting you acquainted with many of the systems of your mechs. However for as engaging as the prologue might be, I still can't help but feel that Clans could have had a bit more hand-holding with regard to control scheme tutorials and just managing your Star in general. Whereas previous titles in the MechWarrior franchise might've been more sandbox-y and open, Clans takes a tighter turn, sticking to its story beats rather than letting players off the hook in a sandbox galaxy. While I'm a huge fan of sandbox games, especially those that allow you to stomp around in 50 ton mechs, destroying everything in sight, I found that I was quite engaged throughout the 30 or so hour campaign. Sure, there were periods where I was bored or simply wanted to get past a particular mission at all costs (a number of mid-game missions just feel ... mean, more details below). A diligent and good MechWarrior will likely be able to beat the campaign in about 22-23 hours, but the average player will likely take closer to 30 hours; completionists can expect a 40 or so hour campaign which is no slouch. Very few games, FPS games, have campaigns that reach double digits to beat, let along up to 40 hours!
I do think that it's important to point out that balance, especially in these early days, was all over the place. The difficulty spikes are stratospheric in that mid-mission things can go from manageable to game over in a matter of seconds. The first real boss that you come up against, an incredibly nimble flying unit, will likely absolutely demolish what's left of your Star. This leads into the first major problem I had with Clans ... it's brutally hard, but not in the fun way that Elden Ring or Bloodbourne were, but in the "I'm going to be a bully just because I can" style. On Normal you can expect to see 3 to 4 members of your Star (this is what a squad of mechs is called in the Clans for the unaware, whereas Mercenaries call them "Lances") get smoked well before the end of the mission. While that doesn't sound bad, especially given how lenient the repair model is in Clans, it's incredibly craptastic when you realize that the first portion of a mission is the "easy" part ... losing 3/5 of your squad with no reprieve before you need to take on increasingly more and more waves isn't a skill issue, it's a balance one. This wouldn't be such a thorn in MechWarrior's side if it weren't for the fact that not only are missions 35-45 minutes in length but ...
There is no mid-mission autosave, nor can you (at the time of this article's writing) save mid-mission. That means that if you get to the end of a mission, where the difficulty spike is extreme and you lose, that's upwards of 45 minutes just wasted, ergo the "bully" comment. I fully admit that I was switching the difficulty level back and forth constantly before finally just leaving it on Story mode and even then your Star could often get utterly wafflestomped.
Combat balance is my biggest gripe with MechWarrior 5: Clans as it makes the game un-fun. It's hard to enjoy a power fantasy in such a rich universe when all it takes is a couple tanks and a helicopter and your mech is screwed. Melee is relatively useless as if you get that close, you're already dead. I really hope to see Piranha release more regulated balance passes post-launch, but we'll see what the rest of the community says and whether Piranha listens to them.
The missions are only a small portion of Clans, though, and while they are easily the biggest time-sinks in the game, there are plenty of things to do between missions. Which brings my second biggest gripe with MechWarrior 5: Clans, and that's the cutscenes. While I actually enjoyed the story of you and your Star coming up from a bunch of nobodies while you find your place in the galaxy, the cutscenes are just awful. The uncanny valley had me looking away from the screen in discomfort, especially around the mouths. Maybe it's just me, but it almost feels like an AI was used to try to sink the animations of the face to the words, except the AI was a drunken toddler. The only recent game I've seen lately that has had more uncomfortable animation work, was the abomination that is Homeworld 3. The shame is that the drama of the story and the top-tier voice-acting are really truly something to pay attention to... you should just do it by looking away from the screen.
Despite faults with the uncanny valley, brutally bully-ish difficulty spike, MechWarrior 5: Clans by Piranha Games is still more than worth your time. Challenging, gorgeous, and with a compelling story about self-discovery in a universe where people are genetically bred for warfare, Clans is a frustrating if enjoyable romp through some of the nicest set pieces I've seen in 2024. Major kudos to the dev team for making a compelling reason to bring war to the Inner Sphere!
Score: 7.5 out of 10
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