I'm a huge Battletech fan, and have been playing since the 80's, playing almost every electronic game that's ever come out for it (I don't own MW5:Clans because it's not on GOG), as well as a longtime player of the original tabletop game. I will thrilled at the concept of a sandboxy type Mechwarrior war sim game of running a mercenary company in the Battletech universe. That said, I must be honest. The vanilla game is maybe a 3/5, with a lot of credit coming from the DLCs and later free updstes. The mech combat feels good, and adds most of the replayability to the game. However, the selection of truly viable units is limited due to the specific MW5 extremely limited customization abilities. The original selection of missions are very samey, with even the base story missions being mere variants of normal generic missions. The DLCs and free updates did a lot to improve upon it, but it was still just an "okay" game vanilla. That's where modding comes in. Thank God PGI made the decision to support modding, and the game is stupidly easy to mod! With just a few mods it becomes almost an entirely different game, with full customizability (Yet Another Mechlab), better AI (TTRulez_AIMod2) a slew of new mission types (Coyote's Mission Pack), and a plethora of mechs spanning the entire timeline of the game and beyond (Lore Based Mech Variants, Yet Another IS/Clan Mech, Brian Cache, and more), make pilots feel meaningful (Pilot Overhaul - Eternal) and even flesh out the map (Known Universe, slighly more difficult to install). Ironically, with DLC7 coming in a month (sometime September 2025 at time of review), the game will finally be where PGI promised to have the storyline day one, with the original announcement stating the game would run from 3015 to 3052 in the Battletech timeline. Until now the gameplay and available map changes run their course at 3042. DLC7 will push the available timeline to 3057. About time. Worth a pickup on sale, worth more with mods!
It's a great DLC for an amazing game. The DLC leans much MUCH more into the voodoo side of what makes the undead in this world. While comparatively brief to a main campaign chapter, the developers recently compensated for this by permanently decreasing the price. It's still a lot of fun, expands on the lore drastically, and gives you another perspective on this games version of the "weird west" supernatural world horror vibe. Now they just need to give us a NG+ option to play the witch doctor through the main game's campaign. It'd just be the perfect polishing point to tack onto the DLC, and the only thing that leaves it a 4 star review instead of a 5. If they ever add the feature, then consider this a 5 star review.
This was a game I had on my radar, and picked up promptly after release. It was good, but still had some rough edges and also absolutely begged for NG+ and/or randomizer/modifers support. Well, not only did the rough edges get polished, but it received NG+, game modifiers, DLC, and there's more! The developers have -at the time of this review- expanded on the voice lines in the game (from the amazing voice actor of Garret, no less), added a codex for enemies, added a bunch of free content to the main game, and apparently have some more stuff up their sleeves they've teased about. As for game content, while it leans more heavily on stealthier ambush gameplay, you can go loud if you want. Just be prepared for rough fights, because the enemies are generally ruthless and extremely aggressive; and you're just a squishy person . . . well . . . a squishy UNDEAD person . . . but still very much of human limitations. The game has a mix of some souls-like elements to it with a side of survival horror. You develop handicaps that become full-blown curses if you die too much. Resources are limited early on but become easier to deal with throughout the game. If things feel hard you can always grind for more levels or tinker with different builds; and the game provides a very easy and accessible means of respeccing later in the game, so you don't feel bad about taking all those farming perks early on. You've also got plenty of weapons with sometimes strange and wild quirks (ex. a sword that makes you bleed if you miss but does massive bleed damage on hits, or a cursed shotgun that . . . makes vendors love you with huge discounts). Melee is extremely viable and there are some absolutely ridiculiously powerful builds out there. If you're even remotely interested in the game, I'd strongly suggest giving it a go. If nothing else jump for it on a decent sale. Oh, and the DLC just got a permanent price drop, so that's just icing on the cake.
