Across a vast sector of space known as the Inner Sphere, it is the 29th century, and war rages. Great Houses wage battles of intrigue and bloodshed alike, using giant robots known as BattleMechs ('Mechs) piloted by elite fighters called MechWarriors to do the latter. But in their haste to seize power, humans have destroyed more than a few things that were taken for granted in the past, and blood is now far cheaper than metal. Mercenaries are cheaper still, and this is the concept that BATTLETECH focuses on.

Set during the Third Succession War of the Battletech setting, BATTLETECH (I'm going to stop writing it like that from now on) starts out simple, focusing on your character doing a "milk run" mission for royalty that goes south. Soon enough, you end up heading a company of MechWarrior mercenaries out in the Periphery, sort of the "Wild West" of the setting. Taking missions, crushing enemies, and punching out names, your company must go from barely scraping by to thriving, primarily by excelling on the battlefield.

If you've played games like the XCOM reboot, Battletech is going to look familiar on the surface. But this superficial similarity belies an interesting implementation of a tabletop system that's over 30 years old at this point. Fighting with 'Mechs is a grind in the best possible meaning of the word, starting out with combatants firing on all cylinders only to have damage gradually wear them down. By the end of a drop, units on both sides may be struggling to stay alive, desperately attempting to avoid blows that may prove fatal. Combat is too complicated to go into at length in this review, but through effective usage of flanks, tactics, range, and pilot skills, your four-man lance of MechWarriors can take on far larger forces and emerge victorious. Each of your 'Mechs can be customized between missions, allowing you to choose what you want each of your units to prioritize and focus on to make the ultimate fighting machines.

Success or failure transfers back to the overall campaign in a lot of important ways. Taking more damage will put your 'Mechs in the repair bay longer if you want to get them back in fighting shape before the next mission, not to mention cost more money and potentially drain your stocks of weaponry. "Legging" an enemy or attempting to knock out its pilot without forcing their mech to go critical will let you grab more of its gear and even its parts, while "coring out" a hostile by firing at center mass until its reactor explodes can be an easier way to remove them from the field, but will lower the salvage you get as much of its arsenal is devastated or destroyed in the resulting detonation.

While there is a "main story", and it is, in my opinion, compelling and well-written, Battletech allows you to ignore it and go about the Periphery doing your own thing (a mode was even added alongside the first DLC that lets you do exactly that, turning the game into a lengthy score attack). Following the story will help set a more natural progression (several missions offering you the ability to outright buy chasses to up-gun yourself after their completion so you can stay competitive, for instance), but if you try to do every mission the moment it opens up, they can be incredibly challenging bordering on impossible, especially if you're going into them blind. Due to its placement in the timeline and the studio's previous work on titles like Shadowrun Dragonfall, this game can serve as an excellent introduction to the Battletech universe, allowing you to learn as much or as little as you want during conversations.

With all those positives and cool aspects come a few issues, however. The first is that you will need to get good or enjoy restarting the campaign. Battletech is a game about risk vs reward, and while it won't remind you that sometimes the best option is to not fight at all, it's something that always needs to be kept in mind. This isn't an XCOM-style "clear the map and win the mission" game, at least not all the time, and making a few sizable mistakes in one or two drops in a row can lead to a slippery slope that kills the whole campaign for one reason or another. The other flaw is that while I think HBS's free, incremental updates to the game have been very welcome in keeping the game interesting, their current hand of DLC offerings is not encouraging and makes me ask whether it's truly worthwhile. The base game stands on its own decently well, but Paradox's close involvement with the project is revealing itself piece by $19.99 piece.

Overall, Battletech is, in a word, great. You feel the fear of failure, the rush of success, and the wonder of a plan well-executed. Whether it's following the structured storyline or forging out on your own, it's an excellent example of emergent narrative, how no two missions go the same, and how taking the rails off and letting players break and tinker with things have allowed for one of the most engaging tactics-based games not just for this year, but much of the decade.

Across a vast sector of space known as the Inner Sphere, it is the 29th century, and war rages. Great Houses wage battles of intrigue and bloodshed alike, using giant robots known as BattleMechs ('Mechs) piloted by elite fighters called MechWarriors to do the latter. But in their haste to seize power, humans have destroyed more than a few things that were taken for granted in the past, and blood is now far cheaper than metal. Mercenaries are cheaper still, and this is the concept that BATTLETECH focuses on. Set during the Third Succession War of the Battletech setting, BATTLETECH (I'm going to stop writing it like that from now on) starts out simple, focusing on your character doing a "milk run" mission for royalty that goes south. Soon enough, you end up heading a company of MechWarrior mercenaries out in the Periphery, sort of the "Wild West" of the setting. Taking missions, crushing enemies, and punching out names, your company must go from barely scraping by to thriving, primarily by excelling on the battlefield. If you've played games like the XCOM reboot, Battletech is going to look familiar on the surface. But this superficial similarity belies an interesting implementation of a tabletop system that's over 30 years old at this point. Fighting with 'Mechs is a grind in the best possible meaning of the word, starting out with combatants firing on all cylinders only to have damage gradually wear them down. By the end of a drop, units on both sides may be struggling to stay alive, desperately attempting to avoid blows that may prove fatal. Combat is too complicated to go into at length in this review, but through effective usage of flanks, tactics, range, and pilot skills, your four-man lance of MechWarriors can take on far larger forces and emerge victorious. Each of your 'Mechs can be customized between missions, allowing you to choose what you want each of your units to prioritize and focus on to make the ultimate fighting machines. Success or failure transfers back to the overall campaign in a lot of important ways. Taking more damage will put your 'Mechs in the repair bay longer if you want to get them back in fighting shape before the next mission, not to mention cost more money and potentially drain your stocks of weaponry. "Legging" an enemy or attempting to knock out its pilot without forcing their mech to go critical will let you grab more of its gear and even its parts, while "coring out" a hostile by firing at center mass until its reactor explodes can be an easier way to remove them from the field, but will lower the salvage you get as much of its arsenal is devastated or destroyed in the resulting detonation. While there is a "main story", and it is, in my opinion, compelling and well-written, Battletech allows you to ignore it and go about the Periphery doing your own thing (a mode was even added alongside the first DLC that lets you do exactly that, turning the game into a lengthy score attack). Following the story will help set a more natural progression (several missions offering you the ability to outright buy chasses to up-gun yourself after their completion so you can stay competitive, for instance), but if you try to do every mission the moment it opens up, they can be incredibly challenging bordering on impossible, especially if you're going into them blind. Due to its placement in the timeline and the studio's previous work on titles like Shadowrun Dragonfall, this game can serve as an excellent introduction to the Battletech universe, allowing you to learn as much or as little as you want during conversations. With all those positives and cool aspects come a few issues, however. The first is that you will [i]need[/i] to get good or enjoy restarting the campaign. Battletech is a game about risk vs reward, and while it won't remind you that sometimes the best option is to not fight at all, it's something that always needs to be kept in mind. This isn't an XCOM-style "clear the map and win the mission" game, at least not all the time, and making a few sizable mistakes in one or two drops in a row can lead to a slippery slope that kills the whole campaign for one reason or another. The other flaw is that while I think HBS's free, incremental updates to the game have been very welcome in keeping the game interesting, their current hand of DLC offerings is not encouraging and makes me ask whether it's truly worthwhile. The base game stands on its own decently well, but Paradox's close involvement with the project is revealing itself piece by $19.99 piece. Overall, Battletech is, in a word, great. You feel the fear of failure, the rush of success, and the wonder of a plan well-executed. Whether it's following the structured storyline or forging out on your own, it's an excellent example of emergent narrative, how no two missions go the same, and how taking the rails off and letting players break and tinker with things have allowed for one of the most engaging tactics-based games not just for this year, but much of the decade.