Hello ladies, gentlemen and those of a non-binary nature. My name is Daibhi, this is the Gamerhub community and this is my review of Battletech. For those who follow me across various social media platforms, you’ll know that I am something of geek. In fact, I love the grim-dark worlds of Warhammer 40k, so when this game came across my in-tray, I was excited. I love strategy and war games if they’re not grounded within our reality, and this sort of game greatly appeals to me. So, would I enjoy this game? Would I recommend it to you? Will I finally get a chance to be buried beneath Titan (if you know, you know)? Two of those three questions will be answered as I delve into the world of BattleTech.
Introduction
Battletech isn’t what we’d call a new game. It was developed by Harebrained Schemes and published by Paradox Interactive, and released for Mac OS X and Windows in 2018, but has only recently been put onto Microsoft’s Game Pass, which is how it got to my in-tray. For those who think that they may have heard of this game before 2018, this game shares the setting with the online board game franchise from well over 15 years ago now called “Classic Battletech” and had a lot of the development team from the classic franchise to help build this game. This means that Jordan Weisman (who created the franchise in the first place) and Mitch Gitelman (who produced both Mech Commander and Merch Assault) were both on board for this game, and in my opinion, you can clearly feel their influence on this game, but more on that later. This game runs the Unity game engine and is a turn-based strategy game with both a single-player and multiplayer mode.
Image Courtesy of The Binpress Podcast, with our thanks
Setting
I normally include this part in the introduction section but considering the game’s lore and the influences on said lore, this kind of requires a separate section. It’s a huge compliment in a way, as I can introduce you all to the world if you’ve never come across it. It goes to the strength of the storytelling that even newcomers to this game can play it and not get confused, but then, you’re reading this to consider if you’ll play the game, and I’m happy to indulge.
The year is 3025, and the era is called the “Succession Wars Era” (think Game Of Thrones for this), and each noble house have giant fighting mechanical robots (called “mechs”), controlled by warriors. They’re all fighting for control of the game’s MacGuffin, called the inner sphere. However, by this point in the franchise’s lore, science and technology development is starting to go backwards as the war has played havoc on resources, lives and everyone’s appetite for war. As a direct result of this, the Mechs are incredibly limited and sparse, forcing you to pick one of the houses to serve.
The Inner Sphere isn’t a MacGuffin in the traditional sense, it’s a “No-Man’s-Land” of space, stretching for 550 lightyears in radius around planet earth in every conceivable direction. This area is divided into nine states, with some being much bigger than others. For the sake of keeping this simple for you, you have five bigger states controlled by a noble house, and four smaller ones. The bigger states surround the earth, and the smaller ones surround that in an area called “the periphery”.
The game takes place in one of the minor states of this called The Augurian Reach. This Reach is controlled by a coalition of houses and was eventually abandoned as the coalition failed and now a minor house is vying for control. However, problems arise when this minor house starts to expand and colonise further solar systems and planets beyond the periphery.
We all got that? Good.
The plot
I’m going to keep this brief as I don’t want to ruin many of the game’s Game-Of-Thrones-Meets-Halo style twists.
Kamea Arano, heir to the Arano dynasty, hires you as an honour guard for her coronation. As she’s about to become queen, tensions within her family are getting incredibly high, (and I’ll cover this more in a wee bit) and her uncle Santiago successfully performs a Coup D’Etat, leaving Kemea and you presumed dead. Even worse, your mech is absolutely gubbed (a Scots word which means “knackered beyond repair” in this context) and you both end up getting rescued by a ruthless and bloodthirsty group of mercenaries called “Markham’s Marauders”. The game’s plot involves you helping take back the planet, and depose Santiago to regain control of The Reach, whilst also inciting insurrection on other planets to gain support and help from their inhabitants, and also to gain more mechs for the oncoming battle.
Here’s my opinion. It’s all a bit too much like Dune for my tastes, but then, I do love my science fiction to hurt the brain a little bit, and this plot gives you that in spades. The plot relies heavily on your character being something of a reluctant hero, and cribs a lot of story tropes from the HALO franchise, but it actually helps keep you from being bored. Turn-based combat can be thrilling, but the repetitiveness of it will bore people eventually. That’s why Pokémon keeps involving new mechanics for every generation. That being said, this game is a corker when it comes to plot, and you definitely get your value for money in the plot department.
Soundtrack
It comes as no surprise for me to find out while researching who made this game to find out that this games’ composer, Jon Everist, was nominated for “Best video game score of the year” at the 34th ASCAP Screen Music Awards. It’s incredible! The score is naturalistic at the points where it matters, but when needed, this game feels orchestral. There are violins, double basses, trombones, violas and pretty much the full orchestra used in this soundtrack, which really helped me emotionally connect with the characters.
In my opinion gamers, this is an art form that we’re slowly losing, but by god it feels good when you get a game that has it. To keep the hard futuristic war feel, you can also hear magic performed on both modular and analogue synths, keeping you hooked into this world. Side note- I actually have the soundtrack for this game kept as a YouTube playlist, which I think I’ll keep to play in the background when I’m writing in the future. It reduced me to tears on multiple occasions.
Gameplay
With a game set in this epic, futuristic war setting, you’d expect that the game would involve you fighting in a lot of mech suits, stomping around battlefields like Godzilla, laying waste to everything in sight. However, you’d be wrong on this. Due to the game’s setting, with everything becoming ever-more scarce by the day, this game is just as much about business ownership and resource management as it is about being a space-age warlord. The galaxy doesn’t give a flying fuck about you, and as much, you have to keep yourself one step ahead of resources, your spaceship’s fuel and payroll. Yes, payroll. Those bloodthirsty and unscrupulous pirates-come-mercenaries won’t help you for nothing.
As for the combat, this game adapts the best of the original boardgames and improves on it. There are weight-class move phases called shots, which rely heavily on where you spend those all-too-rare skill points, and the stats really do matter as you progress throughout the game. Once you’re on the battlefield, you’re in a mech. They might look invulnerable but listen to me here: they’re not. They have a hardened outer shell, but the inner shell is a death trap. You manage four pilots in this mech as you avoid the enemy and peel away their mech’s armour to expose their mech’s core, causing it to overheat. A word of caution though: Going hell-for-leather with every turn being a direct attack will cause your mech to overheat, and then it’s game over. This game requires tactics just as much as it requires direct assault.
Mind your surroundings whilst doing this, as there are multiple ways of taking down a mech. The battlefield itself can be used as both armour and weaponry. For example, your enemy may find it a lot harder to destroy you if you’re up on a peak, but everyone else will also know exactly where you are. So, to quote Liam Neeson’s character in that Batman film, always mind your surroundings.
Price Point
If this game sounds like your sort of video game and you want to get your hands on it, I’ve got some bad news for console gamers: it isn’t available on consoles. However, for those of us that use computers to video game (as I do quite a bit), then it’s £34.99. It is however, available on Microsoft’s Xbox suite for PC for £33.99 and also on the Game Pass, with two alternate versions also available to purchase. If you’re all in for buying the game, all the DLC and a digital artbook containing 4k wallpapers and that exquisite soundtrack, this game will knock you back £54.99.
For my gaming sensibilities, this game is worth every penny, but if you’ve got to this point, you should know either way.
4.1 Joysticks out of 5.
For the Gamerhub community, I’ve been Dabhi and you are all legends.
