Neither DLC nor a true sequel, Mechwarrior 5: Clans is something of a cousin to Mechwarrior 5: Mercenaries. Where Mercs felt rough around the edges — though often appealingly so — Clans is a much more polished game. It's the first time that a Mechwarrior game has focused on the clans outside of the Inner Sphere in nearly three decades, and there is a lot more characters and voice acting to give the game more of a plot. Developer Piranha Games has also tweaked other aspects of the game; some are welcome, and others hopefully aren't indicative of the future direction of games in the series.

You play as Jayden, the leader of a star of five mech pilots of Clan Smoke Jaguar. The five are the last remaining survivors of 200 pilots who were genetically engineered and grown to be proper Mechwarriors, eager to pass their trials and fight for their clan. Soon after their trials, a mysterious ship appears in orbit over their clan's home world. Investigation determines that the ship came from the Inner Sphere. This kicks off a military response from the Clans, now united in their goal to invade the worlds of the Inner Sphere and reclaim what they believe is rightfully theirs. Newly appointed as Mechcommander, Jayden must lead his star into battle across systems and fight for Clan Smoke Jaguar.

At first, it's rather impressive how much effort has been put into the cut scenes and voice acting in Clans. It is welcome to have a Mechwarrior game put effort into portraying the pilots that are inside of the mechs rather than just the mechs themselves. Each character is well-acted and has their own motivations and mannerisms that give the game more heart behind the otherwise cold armor.

It doesn't take long to realize that if all of these characters are voice acted, they aren't exactly going anywhere unless the plot demands it. After taking critical damage in their mech, they'll always eject safely, so there's zero reason to be concerned about their livelihood during a mission. They can't even get hurt, as they are the only pilots you have, so there are no concerns about injuries making them unavailable for the next drop. I'm not convinced any of these are bad decisions, but it underscores that the game is really geared around telling its particular story.

It does get a little too deep in the weeds of Mechwarrior lore at times, to the point that its story becomes a little intelligible. If I don't know what a Dragoon is, I really can't resonate with characters talking about whether their intelligence is good. The game alternates between taking far too long with cut scenes filled with exposition and at other times rushes through plot points that could've used further explanation. I had to go to a wiki to finally understand why that dropship appearing in Clan Smoke Jaguar space triggered such a lopsidedly massive response; the game assumes that you're read up on the Clan Invasion of 3048. If not, a lot of the plot becomes a murky soup of well-acted characters getting very upset about things you'll only barely understand.

The planetside action of the game remains largely unchanged from Mercs. Smaller changes, such as the ability to scan for resource caches or ammo dumps to reload, are nice additions. The new Battlegrid lets you command your star from a top-down perspective like an RTS. While this feature is cumbersome to use in the middle of combat since you lose your ability to fight, it lets you order pilots to move to a specific location on the map even if it's beyond the line of sight. At times when I took more damage than the rest of my star, I'd have them forge ahead so I could hang back and engage from the backfield.

The combat remains just as engaging as it was in Mercs. The game is still at its best when you're maneuvering your 50+ ton heap of servos and autocannons, trying to land shots on the right torso of that Hunchback to disable most of its laser array. My strongest criticism of the combat is that it tends to emphasize quantity over quality, and every mission is a sea of fending off dozens of smaller mechs that may as well be ankle biters. At its worst, it often becomes the game's way of dialing in difficulty: piling enemy mechs onto the battlefield either by unseen dropships or mysteriously falling from every opening in a cave complex.

The progression of the game is tightly controlled and effectively very linear. Every time you reach a new planet, there is an introductory mission, and then pairs/trios of missions are unlocked that you can complete in any order before another group becomes available. At that point, a final mission begins that wraps up things on that planet before moving on to the next. There are always five cycles between missions to allow for some time for your technicians to make repairs, and given how many technicians you've invested in, you might have to make difficult choices about which mechs get fully repaired and which might have to go into battle a little banged up.

The new MechLab functionality is a grab bag of changes both good and bad. Clan Smoke Jaguar travels with a merchant corps, so all weapons and battlemechs are available for purchase all the time, and changing loadouts happens instantaneously and for free (barring the cost of any new equipment). I like the new Omnipod system, where you can unlock different variants of a mech by spending experience gained by using that mech in the field. These variants not only change the look of a mech somewhat based on what armament it has, but they are also useful pre-built templates of various loadouts.

It's also an overly simplified MechLab system in Clans, and I can't say I'm a fan of that. Some equipment like jump jets are now built into the mech and cannot be removed or changed, and armor values cannot be adjusted. I loved the ability to take mechs in Mercs and strip jump jets and perhaps a little armor to save weight for more firepower, or vice versa. In Clans, the MechLab feels so restrictive that I rarely changed the loadouts in a meaningful way because I didn't care to deal with all its new limitations.

I like the implementation of the new science and research functionality, but it too is the result of some simplification. Salvage from missions no longer means picking out weapons or mech parts as your trophies; instead, it's boiled down to a points system:  mechs, equipment, and weapons. I get that such salvage doesn't make as much sense given the context of Clan warfare, but it feels too streamlined. Every cycle, your science lab can generate an upgradable amount of science points, and by using some of those salvage points you've accumulated, they can permanently upgrade your mechs in dozens of categories. If you want to focus on beefing up your armor, reducing the heat generated by pulse lasers, or increasing the damage of PPCs, you can freely choose which ones your scientists work on.

Each mech chassis can be upgraded by spending mech experience points on things like acceleration rate increases, torso maximum angle, etc. There are also mech-specific challenges, such as taking out a number of a specific mech types that grant experience bonuses or camouflage unlocks. Your individual star-mates also gain experience, which can be spent to improve their abilities, but it's simplified down to broad categories, such as missile lock-on time or laser cooldowns, and each pilot has a mostly distinct set of them.

Mechwarrior 5: Clans does a lot of relatively new things for the series, and a whole lot more effort has gone into the polish and presentation of the game. The new changes aren't all for the better, and while I can respect that the game is meant to tell its own story, it comes at the expense of effectively removing all of the player's agency in influencing it. My idea of a perfect Mechwarrior game is some sort of middle ground between Mercs and Clans.

Score: 7.4/10

Reviewed on: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D, 32 GB RAM, NVidia RTX 4070 Ti