MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries – Review (PC)

By Dave Lambden Last updated Dec 10, 2019

As the first true single player entry in the series in almost two decades, MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is a return to form for the franchise. Developer Piranha Games have promised a true sandbox and action driven experience that balances intense mech action with conflicting player choice. Luckily they’ve been mostly successful in delivering on that lofty goal and have created a walking tank piloting experience that is accessible, intense, and deep.

You take control of Commander Mason – a relatively green Mech pilot who has only recently started to learn his craft from his father. A series of unexpected events leads our protagonist to take command of a mercenary group of mechwarriors. Left in shambles, you’re tasked with making a quick escape from a rogue group of soldiers known as the Black Inferno and rebuilding your once renowned gun-for-hire outfit. Working along side Major Ryana Campbell and your mechanic Fahad, the story sets up the arduous task of rebuilding both your reputation and resources to ultimately take revenge against the Black Inferno and reassert dominance in the Inner Sphere. While narrative certainly isn’t the focus of MechWarrior 5, the story adequately sets the stage for your journey and satiates with some intriguing mystery.

As you are effectively running a business, the overarching goal in MechWarrior 5 is to accumulate as much money as possible. The primary source of income comes by way of successfully completing contracts for different factions. As you travel through the game’s massive Star Map, you’ll come across wealthy families and corporations that represent these factions who are looking for some muscle to solve their problems. Successful completion of contracts net you a variety of rewards, the most important of which are C-Bills.

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Amassing a stock pile of C-Bills isn’t as simple as knocking out as many jobs as possible. Each potential payout also comes with a wide variety of expenses. In addition to buying and fitting your mech with weapons, you’ll need to hire pilots who come with a one time hiring fee as well as a perpetual salary. Depending on damage sustained during a battle, you could spend thousands on repairing and refitting your valuable mechs. Getting from one system to another also comes with a price. This all creates a complex and rewarding system of risk and reward. You’ll need to carefully balance potential return on the investment of taking on new contracts and going into battle.

A negotiation system adds further layers of complexity. Prior to starting each contract, you can use a limited number of Negotiation Points to bargain for higher rewards at the conclusion of a successful mission. Impressively, this isn’t limited to the payout. While you can simply ask for more money, you can also choose to bargain for a higher share of salvaged parts or even additional compensation for damage sustained to your mechs.

Piloting your mech in missions is surprisingly simple. Attacks are mapped to the left and right mouse buttons with additional tools bound to number keys. Movement can take a little while to get used to, mainly because you have to get the hang of moving your massive mechanized torso with the mech’s legs. Luckily there are inputs that allow players to quickly align their legs with the direction you’re currently looking. Things start to get increasingly complicated though. Before long, you’ll need to start keeping an eye on mechanical temperature to prevent from overheating. Ammo can also quickly deplete if you’re not paying close enough attention.

Environment and climate also plays a role in keeping your lance operational. Colder temperatures can increase reload times on some weapons, whereas hotter maps cause your mech to overheat quickly. It’s quick and easy to pick up, but tough to master all that is going on.

Gameplay really hits its stride once you gain enough money and reputation to hire a full squad of four mechs to take into battle. By traveling to Industrial Hubs, you can hire on a new roster of pilots, each with different areas of expertise. Each pilot has the potential to excel in the use of different weapons, which makes it easy to tailor a pilot to a specific type of mech. Once in battle, you can issue a basic set of commands to your squad such as attack target, hold fire, or form on me. In most cases, however, friendly AI was more than capable of taking care of business on their own, and squad commands were rarely needed.

Mission variety is somewhat lacking, on the other hand. There are several different contract types on offer. Various factions will request help in the form of Attacks, Defenses, Raids, Demolition, and Warzones to name a few. Unfortunately these mission types all generally boil down to doing the same thing – enter a zone, travel to a waypoint and kill all enemies, destroy all the buildings or some combination of the two. The one mission type that does feel noticeably different is Defense. In these missions, you’re tasked with keeping a settlement or installation above a certain damage threshold. Waves of enemy tanks, helicopters, and mechs will pour in to level the area. While Defense missions do have you change up your strategy, it ultimately makes things less enjoyable. These missions boil down to tip-toeing around buildings and frantically trying to keep enemies away. Nevertheless, gameplay remains mostly fun, chaotic, and satisfying despite some repetition in mission objectives.

At the conclusion of each mission, you are given the choice to retain or sell a limited number of salvaged parts. These parts, which can also be purchased from a Market, can then be fitted to mechs to replace damaged weapons or upgrade weaker ones. The pool of weapons and parts is incredibly deep. This all results in advanced levels of customization and tinkering to build something that perfectly fits your attack style. A clunky and admittedly confusing BattleMech screen houses all of the equipment customization for MechWarrior. Given how well the rest of the game is explained, it was a bit of a mystery as to why this section wasn’t given as much attention. But if time is given to understanding the intricacies of stat driven customization, players can sink hours into customizing load outs, manipulating tonnage, and slotting in new parts to create an undoubtedly unique walking tank.

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries offers a surprisingly accessible action packed experience with an impressive amount of depth. The managing of resources and expenses creates an intricate and rewarding metagame that expertly complements the intensity of the game’s battles. Despite some shortcomings in cumbersome menu design and lacking mission variety, MechWarrior 5 is easy to recommend for both series veterans and newcomers.