MEAT VS METAL
NEED TO KNOW
WHAT IS IT?
Giant robot combat simulator in a storied franchise
EXPECT TO PAY
$50
DEVELOPER
Piranha Games
PUBLISHER
In-house
REVIEWED ON
Intel Core i5-3330, GeForce GTX 1070 Ti, 8GB RAM
MULTIPLAYER
Co-op only
LINK
This throwback mech sim honors the 30-year MechWarrior legacy very closely: In mechanics, in controls, and even in soundtrack. Bombastic guitar riffs thunder over every combat, lasers sizzle, PPCs crackle, and gauss rifles make that weird ‘pew’ noise, you know the one. Mechs stomp and break and explode spectacularly, levelling buildings around them. In short: MechWarrior is extremely back.
Not everything about is rooted in the past. The overall aesthetic fits into the contemporary look of the universe. The UI is clean, inspired by the work that went into Harebrained Schemes’ interface for 2018’s . Piranha’s modern mech designs are memorable updates to the dated ’80s designs. They stomp menacingly at each other past. It also brings in your friends in a co-op mode, both for campaign and one-off skirmishes, that is both stable and tactically rich. It runs pretty well aside from one glitchy randomly-generated mission and some chug on mission starts.
