M echWarrior’s Clans are weird. If the Inner Sphere constitutes the rump remains of an interstellar Rome, then the Clans are the gene-splicing frontier techno-barbarians at the gate. Honourbound and fanatical, the Clans have their own notion of how the Inner Sphere should be governed, and in August, 3049, they’re gonna make it everybody’s problem.
MechWarrior 5: Clans centres on a rookie ‘Star’ (a five-mech squad) from the Smoke Jaguar clan, seeing them from the end of their training to their participation in the Clan Invasion of 3049, a pivotal turning point in BattleTech tabletop lore. Like the Shadows of the Empire and Yuuzhan Vong in Star Wars or the Time of Troubles in the Forgotten Realms, it was one of those print-era multimedia events that pressed reset on an established fictional setting.
The BattleTech universe is supposed to be ‘shades of grey’, but nobody can tell me these Clan guys aren’t space orcs. That’s OK though, I love orcs, and the Clanners bring with them not only a “live fast, die young” ethos centred on their genetic mutations and warrior supremacy, but also the best mechs – sleeker, more customisable OmniMechs.
In contrast to the businesslike dogs of war in MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, Clans will focus on an almost alien warrior culture that’s held itself separate from the vast body of humanity remaining in the Inner Sphere. In a throwback to the paired games of MechWarrior’s past, Piranha Games is following up 2019’s Mercenaries with a partner game that approaches the battlefields of the far future in its own way.
Mercenaries delivered a galaxy full of battles to fight, with predominantly procedurally generated levels underpinning a theoretically endless private military management fantasy. “The backbone of Mercenaries was the procedural regeneration system,” Piranha CEO Russ Bullock explains. “And you can see the star map. The dream was ‘fly anywhere on that map, take missions, and fight there.’”
The developer now wants to deliver on a bespoke, handcrafted campaign, and make a companion to that doesn’t simply drop in a new roster of bipedal tanks. After visiting Piranha HQ in Vancouver and talking to some of the passionate developers there, nearly every one of whom cited a lifelong love of BattleTech andstretching back past PC classics like and into the mists of the tabletop era, I’ve got a feeling those ‘freebirth scum’ in the Inner Sphere won’t know what hit them.
