It pains me to not recommend this game. PGI has done tremendous work legally and financially to pull this franchise out of a tailspin that seemed to all but ensure Mechwarrior's doom. They've spent many years agonizingly fighting through many legal and corporate shenanigans to make it this far, so I don't want to cast doubt on their dedication to the series. However, as much as I love them for saving Mechwarrior, I have to take as much of an unbiased look at the game and be honest about it. As usual with my reviews, especially this one, TL:DR on the bottom.

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries has a tremendous amount of problems. I'm not going to include game play mechanics that I disagree with as flaws if they are working as intended, as this is about how well they pulled off what they were trying, not a "If I was in charge, this is what I would have done" essay.

One big problem that seems to be the theme of the game is that it feels very shallow. Play the game enough, and you'll come to notice that it seems to have a very thin skin stretched over a very basic game. From the coding to the concepts to the writing. What's there feels like it was done as quickly as possible as close to some sort of deadline as possible. Or more likely, done on the absolute cheap. The real heavy lifting seems to being done by the modders right now to finish the game concept we were given. I don't know if this is a fair assessment of what is going on behind the scenes, but it's what it feels like.

A) The AI is absolutely atrocious. The more you observe the AI, the more you realize it was given very, very simply programming. Your teammates will be in your way more than they will be assisting you. You will grow to hate them, especially because outside of combat, they have absolutely no interactions or value except to eat up your C-bills.

B) There is a small selection of missions that you will repeat forever. There are very few specific scenarios that aren't just dressed up versions of the normal missions. It doesn't even matter where you are in the Inner Sphere. You could be fighting on a major planet from the lore, or a major sector capital, and you wouldn't even notice any difference from the last hundred missions you took on from the Periphery to Terra.

C) Reputation is very, very basic as well. You'd think making a mortal enemy of a Great House or pirates would result in some sort of consequence beyond them merely paying you less. Yeah, that's right, you can always keep accepting contracts from anyone, the only penalty is you get almost no say in the contract bonuses. You'd think spending years burning through their units and foiling their military operations without mercy would cause them to take a more severe approach to you other then refusing you a decent bonus the one time you mysteriously show up to take a contract from them.

D) Visual effects. The cockpit is lame looking, and the explosions and effects are pretty anemic. The first time I ever had to deal with artillery in the game, I was being deployed from the dropship and already had artillery coming in my direction. It was exciting to get off of the ramp already under fire, but as I dodged the shells, I saw the explosions and it completely took the wind out of my sails. The explosion effects don't even look finished.

E) Speaking of weak, the sound effects and the music itself. There's a lot of bad games with great OSTs. This is a mediocre game with a mediocre soundtrack. But even worse are the combat sounds. The big guns and lasers of the battlemechs sound pathetic. Hard to get that big stompy mech fix when the guns sound like something I can actually carry around.

F) Bugs. Enough bugs to give me fatal errors at least once a day while playing. I don't see a lot of bugs beyond getting stuck on the occasional rock and having to hope the mech doesn't get destroyed before I can make it to the extraction point. I don't see mechs falling through the ground or cartwheeling into the sky or anything like that. It's just the underlying code that just has a hard crash kicking me back to the desktop once or twice or five times a day. Might be that the game isn't super optimized.

G) The story. Man, is the writing for both the dialogue and the story bland as all can be, if not outright annoying at times. Some people will try to tell you that Battletech has always had weak stories and it's totally normal to ignore the single player campaign. Don't listen to these people. They're why we can't have nice things.

There's more, but I really don't have the heart to rag on MW5 or PGI.

TL:DR PGI worked hard to save the franchise, but didn't have the energy or the skill to make a good game. We're left with a very bland Mechwarrior game that's pretty brainless. If you want brainless big stompy mechs, this will do for a bit. Get it on sale. 50% sale at least.

It pains me to not recommend this game. PGI has done tremendous work legally and financially to pull this franchise out of a tailspin that seemed to all but ensure Mechwarrior's doom. They've spent many years agonizingly fighting through many legal and corporate shenanigans to make it this far, so I don't want to cast doubt on their dedication to the series. However, as much as I love them for saving Mechwarrior, I have to take as much of an unbiased look at the game and be honest about it. As usual with my reviews, especially this one, TL:DR on the bottom. MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries has a tremendous amount of problems. I'm not going to include game play mechanics that I disagree with as flaws if they are working as intended, as this is about how well they pulled off what they were trying, not a "If I was in charge, this is what I would have done" essay. One big problem that seems to be the theme of the game is that it feels very shallow. Play the game enough, and you'll come to notice that it seems to have a very thin skin stretched over a very basic game. From the coding to the concepts to the writing. What's there feels like it was done as quickly as possible as close to some sort of deadline as possible. Or more likely, done on the absolute cheap. The real heavy lifting seems to being done by the modders right now to finish the game concept we were given. I don't know if this is a fair assessment of what is going on behind the scenes, but it's what it feels like. A) The AI is absolutely atrocious. The more you observe the AI, the more you realize it was given very, very simply programming. Your teammates will be in your way more than they will be assisting you. You will grow to hate them, especially because outside of combat, they have absolutely no interactions or value except to eat up your C-bills. B) There is a small selection of missions that you will repeat forever. There are very few specific scenarios that aren't just dressed up versions of the normal missions. It doesn't even matter where you are in the Inner Sphere. You could be fighting on a major planet from the lore, or a major sector capital, and you wouldn't even notice any difference from the last hundred missions you took on from the Periphery to Terra. C) Reputation is very, very basic as well. You'd think making a mortal enemy of a Great House or pirates would result in some sort of consequence beyond them merely paying you less. Yeah, that's right, you can always keep accepting contracts from anyone, the only penalty is you get almost no say in the contract bonuses. You'd think spending years burning through their units and foiling their military operations without mercy would cause them to take a more severe approach to you other then refusing you a decent bonus the one time you mysteriously show up to take a contract from them. D) Visual effects. The cockpit is lame looking, and the explosions and effects are pretty anemic. The first time I ever had to deal with artillery in the game, I was being deployed from the dropship and already had artillery coming in my direction. It was exciting to get off of the ramp already under fire, but as I dodged the shells, I saw the explosions and it completely took the wind out of my sails. The explosion effects don't even look finished. E) Speaking of weak, the sound effects and the music itself. There's a lot of bad games with great OSTs. This is a mediocre game with a mediocre soundtrack. But even worse are the combat sounds. The big guns and lasers of the battlemechs sound pathetic. Hard to get that big stompy mech fix when the guns sound like something I can actually carry around. F) Bugs. Enough bugs to give me fatal errors at least once a day while playing. I don't see a lot of bugs beyond getting stuck on the occasional rock and having to hope the mech doesn't get destroyed before I can make it to the extraction point. I don't see mechs falling through the ground or cartwheeling into the sky or anything like that. It's just the underlying code that just has a hard crash kicking me back to the desktop once or twice or five times a day. Might be that the game isn't super optimized. G) The story. Man, is the writing for both the dialogue and the story bland as all can be, if not outright annoying at times. Some people will try to tell you that Battletech has always had weak stories and it's totally normal to ignore the single player campaign. Don't listen to these people. They're why we can't have nice things. There's more, but I really don't have the heart to rag on MW5 or PGI. TL:DR PGI worked hard to save the franchise, but didn't have the energy or the skill to make a good game. We're left with a very bland Mechwarrior game that's pretty brainless. If you want brainless big stompy mechs, this will do for a bit. Get it on sale. 50% sale at least.