MechWarrior 5: Clans

I don’t know a goddamn thing about MechWarrior, but I dropped into Clans, which is an entirely new game and not DLC, an expansion, or a minor spin-off like it sounds, and immediately started having a good time. The giant robot feels good to move around in, the world looks decent and crisp, and a lot (at least early on) of cinematic cutscenes do plenty to build up the futuristic world of ruthless, genetically engineered, fascist military invaders for even a newcomer to grasp and appreciate both the broad strokes and unique wrinkles of the long-running lore.

The control scheme and UI finds a nice balance between slick and appropriately cumbersome for a 50 ton bipedal tank. In-between missions there’s plenty of upgrades to research and loadouts to tweak and customize. Mostly I’ve been surprised by how much the story doesn’t just feel like an afterthought stitching together all of the different mission objectives. Aside from some really weird looking character faces the voice acting, presentation, and writing have all immediately pulled me into MechWarrior 5: Clans’ beautiful but grim and cruel mythology. I can’t wait to continue getting MechWarrior-pilled. — Ethan Gach