MechWarrior Online

 PC
User Score
5.3

Mixed or average reviews- based on 874 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 323 out of 874
  2. Mixed: 177 out of 874
  3. Negative: 374 out of 874

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  1. Blodpaatann
    Sep 20, 2013
    2
    MechWarrior Online, at the core, has very solid and cool gameplay, with pretty decent graphics. However, it is not very engaging, as it has no narrative to keep people interested for role-playing reasons, or good balance and support for a competitive scene. In the end you're left grinding for the sake of buying new bits rather than because you actually enjoy or care for what you're doing,MechWarrior Online, at the core, has very solid and cool gameplay, with pretty decent graphics. However, it is not very engaging, as it has no narrative to keep people interested for role-playing reasons, or good balance and support for a competitive scene. In the end you're left grinding for the sake of buying new bits rather than because you actually enjoy or care for what you're doing, which is a shame because the concept is quite cool and the basics are well done.

    Pros:
    - Cool gameplay, interesting take on old school MechWarrior.
    - Good graphics, cool designs, pretty good sound effects as well.
    - Free, and initial monetary boost helps you get into it enough to form an opinion.

    Cons:
    - Somewhat dodgy balance.
    - Little variation in game modes.
    - Many bugs and glitches, freezing and crashing to desktop is uncommon but still happens way too often.
    - VERY expensive cash shop, easily up towards 30 dollars for a single chassis.
    - If you have more than three or less than 11 friends you won't be able to play with them all at once. :(
    - Very bad user interface.    … Expand
  2. groovy4life
    Sep 19, 2013
    4
    The game with really great potential and dedicated playerbase ends up being mediocre due to slow developement and poor decisions of money hungry developer/publisher teams.

    I'll start with positive things: - real, licensed 'Mechs, most of them done nicely (size is off for some chassis though) - big variety of 'Mechs, all very customizable (developers tend to limit that freedom lately    The game with really great potential and dedicated playerbase ends up being mediocre due to slow developement and poor decisions of money hungry developer/publisher teams.

    I'll start with positive things:
    - real, licensed 'Mechs, most of them done nicely (size is off for some chassis though)
    - big variety of 'Mechs, all very customizable (developers tend to limit that freedom lately though with weird balance mechanics)
    - good graphics
    - nice maps
    - awesome sound effects (I think it is the strongest part of the game)
    - really great and helpful playerbase. Whether you want to immerse yourself into roleplaying aspect of Mechwarrior or just seek a group of people to play together, you will find something for you.

    Now, bad things.

    Biggest flaws I noticed that I cannot forgive because fixes to *all of them* were suggested (and ignored) numerous times on forums during beta period:

    - no proper tutorial for new players (which should be a priority in such a complex game). Simple movement tutorial is not enough. There is no tutorial for Mechlab.

    - no campaign or single player mode. While it's not 100% necessity, even short single player campaign would help new players.

    - no spectator mode until you die in match. There's no option to join match just to spectate other players. It could be delayed 3 minutes to prevent cheating and make it viable option for new players to learn how to play or for competitive players ("judges" in match)

    - no private game lobbies, makes it impossible for competitive teams to fight each other at will. No community-driven tournaments. No e-sports support.

    - still no "Reconnect to server" option (when you get random DC or crash, you screw over your team; there are 1-2 DC players at beginning of every 2-3 matches). Given how buggy the game still is and how often it crashes, it's unacceptable.

    - terrible interface (especially true for Mechlab, where you spend a lot of time customizing your 'Mech. There are fan-created sites that are easier to use and give more information than in-game system. Tragic.). You can't add players to friends during match. Making pre-made group is harder than it should be, for some reason.

    - no in-game voice communication. Sorry but this is standard in teamwork oriented games for years

    - no in-game music soundtrack. Even in menu.

    - no proper game modes. No primary, secondary objectives on maps, no deeper strategy other than "go to the middle of map and hope enemy team went there too so you get to shoot people instead of standing on square in enemy base until you win/enemy wins". There could be AI-controlled tanks, airplanes and other units that we could shoot. Nope. There could be secondary objectives in various places on map so you would have to split up a bit, play it smart, use terrain, use tactics. Nope. There could be at least some defence in bases you need to capture. Nope, you just stand on square.

    - overcomplicating some things; in order to balance some builds they added "ghost heat", a feature that is NOT explained at all in-game but affects everyone who tries certain builds. Instead of balancing weapons they prefer to add "behind the curtains" mechanic that punishes you hard for trying "wrong" builds, up to the point that those builds are unplayable.

    - at the same time they dumb down the gameplay: with the addition of third person view (which no one actually asked for in beta forums) they gave free wallhack to every player, in a game that is supposed to be a mech simulator and where gaining information about enemy might be more crucial than good aim; they nerf every specialist build (snipers, LRM boats, SRM boats, etc.) to the point where almost everyone uses the same mixed loadout or is put at disadvantage.

    - empty promises: they promised DirectX 11 support, UI 2.0 (which was supposed to make interface more user friendly), Community Warfare (I dream of something like Planetside 2 feel, that would make this game so epic). Instead we get 'Mech sales, camouflage sales, paint sales and little balance patches that are mostly fixes of what they messed up in previous balance patch.

    - grind. Free trial mechs are underpowered to the point of being barely playable. To get your first own 'Mech you need to play ~25 games. After that you earn very little money, making it just plain grind to get other variants or chassis.
    That wouldn't be a problem if the game had variety of fun game modes. All we got is same deathmatch which starts to get repetitive fast. You can't even see global players' ratings, no table or ladder, nothing (except for rare, short events)

    Summary: 4/10 for regular gamer. 5-6/10 for Mechwarrior fan. Not worth spending cash on until developers fulfill promises they give all the time. F2P it's OK game.

    Thanks for reading, good luck and have fun    … Expand
  3. Ghostwolfe1
    Sep 19, 2013
    3
    Simply put, the game is not finished yet has been released. There is nothing allowing players to plan matches between friends or groups, a lobby is non existent. The long promised community warfare which would give some solid backstory to fighting in the MWO universe is nowhere on the horizon, the list of incomplete things goes on. There is a general consensus the devs ignore theirSimply put, the game is not finished yet has been released. There is nothing allowing players to plan matches between friends or groups, a lobby is non existent. The long promised community warfare which would give some solid backstory to fighting in the MWO universe is nowhere on the horizon, the list of incomplete things goes on. There is a general consensus the devs ignore their playerbase or quote a "silent majority" backs their choices which sounds like BS. There is a great deal of potential but as of late it seems the Devs spend more time on ways to get players to spend real money in game instead of finishing the product with things that would not cost players real money.… Expand
  4. NARCoMAN
    Sep 19, 2013
    4
    I still play this game because it is mechwarrior, and not mechwarrior online. It delivers on gameplay for a while but gets old after 100 matches. You can really get in to the fights sometimes, and that's why it gets a 4.

    At best, the game is a deathmatch style with little substance outside of trying to get more 'mechs to fight more deathmatches with. There is no meaningful    I still play this game because it is mechwarrior, and not mechwarrior online. It delivers on gameplay for a while but gets old after 100 matches. You can really get in to the fights sometimes, and that's why it gets a 4.

    At best, the game is a deathmatch style with little substance outside of trying to get more 'mechs to fight more deathmatches with. There is no meaningful progression outside of collecting more 'mechs and leveling them up so you can play more matches. Launch was a pathetic whimper of business as usual. If you're interested come back later.

    For the price of free to play I would say try it, but save your money until it gets to be where it should have been.    … Expand
  5. MrIgor
    Sep 19, 2013
    3
    So this is my second time submitting a review for MWO, as apparently my attempts to be honest were not what the copious masses wanted. So instead of rehashing the large post I put up yesterday, let me summarize it for you.

    MechWarrior Online is sub-average in gameplay. Updates arbitrarily change how weapons in-game function. There are only two forms of matches to play, after fourteen    So this is my second time submitting a review for MWO, as apparently my attempts to be honest were not what the copious masses wanted. So instead of rehashing the large post I put up yesterday, let me summarize it for you.

    MechWarrior Online is sub-average in gameplay. Updates arbitrarily change how weapons in-game function. There are only two forms of matches to play, after fourteen months of beta testing, and both are simply derivatives of the team deathmatch game. The recent economy changes, meant to spur the purchasing of MC for real world cash, have made the grind painful and long for anyone other than a new player. New players get to ride a "Cadet Bonus" for the first 20 to 25 matches that ensures they can buy a single 'Mech, but are unaware of how drastic the dip in payouts is after those first matches are over. They are also thrown head-first against seasoned veterans in customized 'Mechs, forced to survive in the stock Trial 'Mechs that have subpar loadouts to learn and earn on. The official forums are toxic, and information pertinent to the game is disseminated across other sites, rendering them effectively moot.

    I stand by my recommendation that only those who are fans of BattleTech or MechWarrior play this, as well as my admonition to keep your wallet closed until you've played the game enough to decide if it's what you want it to be. My score, as posted yesterday before being deleted, stands at a 3 out of 10.    … Expand
  6. GaussDragon
    Sep 18, 2013
    2
    Where to begin with this? My team and I were fanatical about the MechWarrior IP and there was much elation in the early days on the forums (nearly two years now). How things change. Players prioritize different things but I'll explain what were my major gripes with this game.

    Balance This was easily the most frustrating thing for me as a player. The developers let plainly broken    Where to begin with this? My team and I were fanatical about the MechWarrior IP and there was much elation in the early days on the forums (nearly two years now). How things change. Players prioritize different things but I'll explain what were my major gripes with this game.

    Balance
    This was easily the most frustrating thing for me as a player. The developers let plainly broken meta game languish for months after a thoughtless 'fix' (repeatedly) and then routinely over-shoot the mark in fixing the very problem they had created. Instead of revisiting all the weapon values/properties that lead to game imbalances in the first place, they'd create the most enormously convoluted game mechanics in order to 'fix' a problem, which in turn led to a whole host of knock-on effects. What's worse is that there's no way for a new player to know these things without going to some post buried deep within the forums.

    Communication/Trust issues
    As reasonable frustrations mounted in the playerbase, PGI bunkered instead of actually attempting to release the pressure building up the in the community. What could have been partially alleviated by genuinely listening was instead approached with mockery and derision; the president of the company making sarcastic remarks to users on twitter, the community manager mocking people on Reddit and the forum moderators trolling threads just to give themselves reason to lock or move threads they disagreed with. Another major gripe that has been repeated on here is the promises they backtracked on when initially getting Founders funding. I was always rather ambivalent about 3rd person view but a lot people kicked in money in what was essentially a crowdfunding project based on promises that were explicitly stated on to be reneged upon. Generally, instead of actually trying to manage the community, they opted to go into a recursive spiral of antagonism until the forums melted down, only to issue poor apologies and/or explanations long after they should have been made. There was never really any proactive commitment to addressing problems as they started developing, their communication and balance process has been almost entirely reactionary.

    Repetitive system
    A lobby system or even a simple ability for two teams to challenge one-another without having to leave it up to chance by virtue of the the matchmaking system would have relieved a lot of the pressure from the players (temporarily) for one of their biggest demands: community warfare. Simply being able to choose your opponent would have allowed the creation of leagues to tide teams over until community warfare and would have distracted the player base from some of the game's notorious problems yet the developers (or publishers) buried their heads once more.

    The fundamental base of the game is there for something to be great but the laundry-list of actively made mistakes (as opposed to inadvertent ones, though there were tons of those too) makes me have very little faith that anything good will be made out of this game.

    The base system alone merits a 4 and with really good game balance that made use of most of the mechs and weapons this game would go all the way to a 7, lobbies and/or well-implemented community warfare could have shot this game straight up to a 9 or a 10 for me. But, in absence of these qualities and starting with that base of 4, I have to deduct points for gameplay balance that actively makes the game more convoluted and LESS fun. I therefore give this game a 2.

    I put up with a lot of failures and not just stale progression on this game, but active regression, it's hard to come to terms with the fact that a game was better 8 months ago than it is now. I was diehard fan and even I can't stand playing the game anymore so consumer beware.    … Expand
  7. Snowflake
    Sep 18, 2013
    4
    Hi All.

    Sorry for the low score.

    The Game is good, but its lacking a lot that Mechwarrior 2-4 had (Splash Damage where have you gone?). I had a lot of problems adjusting my joystick and in game there were a lot of bugs( Delays in firing weapons) And although the game looks Mechwarrior it does not feel Mechwarrior.

    My money is going to stay in my pocket for now.
  8. CTJ
    Sep 19, 2013
    3
    I am a BTech fan from childhood. I played MechWarrior titles since MW2. This is an abomination of both.

    The good: It looks *slick*. It has recognizable Mechs. It has potential. The community is (currently) vibrant and full of great ideas and analysis. The bad: The developers don't listen or utilize the brilliant ideas. The developers lie, lie and lie. The game is nothing near as good    I am a BTech fan from childhood. I played MechWarrior titles since MW2. This is an abomination of both.

    The good: It looks *slick*. It has recognizable Mechs. It has potential. The community is (currently) vibrant and full of great ideas and analysis.

    The bad: The developers don't listen or utilize the brilliant ideas. The developers lie, lie and lie. The game is nothing near as good as BT3025 was in Alpha. There is no balance. It feels like CoD or other FPS more than a sim or Mech title. It caters to the largest demographic, rather than trying to develop a fantastic title that would draw people in to learn a more complex, interesting game. All in all, it feels like some CoD players wanted to make a game with big stompy robots, acquired a title that would get them immediate recognition and player base, and then because they have no actual love for the origins of the title gutted its heart with a rusty spoon.    … Expand
  9. GuineaRabbit
    Sep 19, 2013
    3
    The game is no where ready for release. The only two game modes are death match while standing in a glowing box. The game is still rife with bugs and missing features:

    The promised persistent universe affected by your victories or losses in battle which was dubbed Community Warfare is still vaporware with no ETA. Roughly 50% of all matches are lopsided from the get-go, on average it    The game is no where ready for release. The only two game modes are death match while standing in a glowing box. The game is still rife with bugs and missing features:

    The promised persistent universe affected by your victories or losses in battle which was dubbed Community Warfare is still vaporware with no ETA.

    Roughly 50% of all matches are lopsided from the get-go, on average it is a coin toss to whether your team will actually have a full roster of 12 players. Very often if your team does get assigned 12 players one or more will immediately disconnect from a crashed client. There is no way to reconnect to your mech after a crash, even though it is still stuck inert in the match. The team that starts the game missing players will most likely be steamrolled with no chance of winning.

    There is no lobby where players can communicate with one another to meet friends or form teams. There is no in-game voice communication system. There are no team command hotkeys to issue quick commands to your teammates such as 'Target this enemy', 'Charge!', 'Take cover!', etc... These features are standard fare for team based FPS type games, but sadly lacking from MWO.

    The new player experience is horrific to put it mildly. There is no real tutorial demonstrating how to drive your mech while controlling your torso and your arms independently. Nor is there any explanation on how to use your weapons to damage opponents. No where is it mentioned that Long-Range Missiles need a lock-on maintained for the entire flight time, laser weapons must be focused on the same aiming point for maximum damage, or the team crippling effects that ECM has. The new player must figure this out all on his/her own, thrown into the same pool against veterans who have been playing since Closed Beta with thousands of games under their belts.

    That's right, there is no 'Newbie Zone'. New players immediately face opponents with the most expensive and powerful Mechs fully upgraded with hundreds of games experience.

    Overall I rate the game a 3, due to the technical issues which have plagued the game since Closed Beta testing, the terrible new player experience, and lack of compelling content to keep you playing. The only reason it didn't get a lower score is because it is loosely based on BattleTech.    … Expand
  10. Lord_Banshee
    Sep 20, 2013
    5
    Slow-Paced gaming, piecemeal-destructible battlemechs are back. Worth a try, if only to understand why all these old guys love them so much.

    Mechs are cool, don't usually die in one shot like squishy soldiers, and can be sorely messed up but still functional. Wonderfully rendered by artist Flying Debris, they make awesome sounds with their weapons and when hit by effects. To some, the    Slow-Paced gaming, piecemeal-destructible battlemechs are back. Worth a try, if only to understand why all these old guys love them so much.

    Mechs are cool, don't usually die in one shot like squishy soldiers, and can be sorely messed up but still functional. Wonderfully rendered by artist Flying Debris, they make awesome sounds with their weapons and when hit by effects. To some, the pace of the gaming, like baseball, is a plus. If you find it too slow, hop in a Light Mech and double-time it.

    I got more value out of my $60 Founder's pack than I did with Skyrim or Starcraft2. However, getting that value is Fraught With Peril and best attempted with a masochistic streak or Asperger's or both.

    Allegedly there are over 1 million MWO accounts. Read before you download and have a chance to be one of the 2-4% of accounts that actually still play.

    1) Buddies!

    You'll enjoy the game more, and be able to use all of its drop modes, only after you meet others who play and drop into games with them. Solo players operate under multiple disadvantages:

    A) you'll never drop as a group, and can never play premade 12v12
    B) other groups will drop against you in a coordinated fashion, making it more likely that you face 2-1 or worse tactical engagements
    C) less likely to learn tips of gameplay, mech loadouts, or gain cbills/experience
    D) "win" a match is either kill all enemies or occupy the most bases. There are two similar flavors of base occupation. This is the way it has been since first day of closed beta, and there is no concrete assurance of expansion. You will face this realization alone, with no one to inspire you or challenge you.

    Dropping with others helps alleviate these conditions. Once the repetitive aspects of the game take hold, you show up more for your drop buddies than the "same-old, same-old" gameplay.

    Therefore, your first download should be TEAMSPEAK. Grab it, set it up, use it. Meet peops at the NGNG or ComStar TS servers. Find a group that mirrors your personality and gaming experience. Look for experienced helpful pilots while you conduct...

    2) the Learning Curve

    No one you met completely turned you off to this game? Good, now it's the game's turn to try that. Install MWO and ignore all attempts that this FtP game tries to remove your money from you.

    Pick a trial mech and then activate a Training session on a map of your choice.

    Get familiar with the options menu and assign keys as you see fit. Get used to third person view, then turn it off and enjoy the minimap.
    Get used to movement, targeting, firing, managing heat, then doing them all simultaneously.
    Learn the maps: what you can see, where you can/can't go, timings. Boring, I know, but less boring than spectator mode or the seat-sulk after a ragequit.

    3) the Constant is Change

    Being alpha/beta and unfinished, it'll change, early and often. Sometimes ridiculously so, as PGI can't balance weaponry to save our lives, and they don't ask the oldschool elite players for help.

    So, in the case of LRM missiles, we were treated to multiple waves of LRMageddon, where misses rained from the sky in wildly OP batches, only to be nerfed into oblivion. Rinse, repeat. Mech variants were not immune either.

    4) Promises, Promises

    Entice the old-schoolers who start the word-of-mouth for you and then change your mind for business reasons.

    This was to be first-person view, no coolant used, never pay-to-win, with a slick UI, new mechs/maps regularly, timeline-accurate, and all leading up to backing your favorite faction/merc corps/clan and live out Mike Stackpole novels during Community Warfare.

    Hated third-person view crept in under cover of darkness.
    Hated coolant was initially added with pay-to-win overtones until the hue and cry reached epic levels.
    Influx of new mechs gradually slowed, maps appear sporadically and some are environmental rehashes of existing maps.
    No lobby at all.
    Timeline was junked once it was obvious that the Dev team fell behind for good.
    Clan mechs and weapons? Dream on.
    UIv2.0 for Launch? Nope. You may look upon the clumsy current UI and frown, but I assure you it was worse in Closed Beta.
    Community Warfare? No guarantee this company will be alive to implement it, and I'm leery of what it will look like if they do. The Launch amounted to nothing more than a typical bimonthly update. No new concept was instantiated that hadn't been tried before. PGI in their Launch gave thousands of online gamer guys a glimpse of what it's like to be the hot girl who finally gets the stud of her dreams in bed, only to find he consistently cums in 3 seconds. Is MWO fun? Yes. Hard to learn? Can be. Boredom sooner than later? Yes. Is it the only MechWarrior genre game that will have future updates? Yes. Could be great and actually implement its vision? Maybe, 20% chance.    … Expand
  11. voxterra
    Sep 24, 2013
    1
    Where to start? The list of broken promises, unattained potentials, and disregard to the paid customer base is so long that I am forced to review in generalities. Not because I want to, but because there is little other choice... who has that much time?
    MechWarrior Online has such potential, but it has been unfulfilled for the year plus that I have been beta-testing and playing.
    They    Where to start? The list of broken promises, unattained potentials, and disregard to the paid customer base is so long that I am forced to review in generalities. Not because I want to, but because there is little other choice... who has that much time?
    MechWarrior Online has such potential, but it has been unfulfilled for the year plus that I have been beta-testing and playing.
    They are not shy about asking for cash payments, but...
    We are still stuck with only two play modes, both of which are strangely similar.
    We still have only 8 maps (and some of them are merely night/day versions of pre-existing maps).
    The long promised and undelivered Community Warfare is still a far away dream. That is, unless you count the ongoing state of war between the community and the devs taking place in the forums.
    Game play itself goes through massive balance swings, with vastly overpowered weapons meeting draconian nerfs, only to be replaced with new, more egregious game balance issues... all in an endless cycle.
    We seem to be going nowhere fast.
    As much as I (and many others) paid out early on in the development cycle, I really wish I could be more optimistic, but it seems like we were suckered with empty promises and the ole vaporware switcheroo.
    Still, I hold out hope. I hate to spend that sort of cash and expend so much effort for a game that even the devs don't take seriously any longer.
    Pray for MechWarrior Online. It may yet recover from its glacial development and anemic offerings... with divine intervention.    … Expand
  12. DeadLikeRev
    Sep 25, 2013
    1
    When this game launched it was full of home and wonder. It promised a lot and then, delivered very little. Launching with no major update, literally just removing the beta tag, the game still has only 2 game modes. Has a unexplained and very complicated system for heat if you have more than 2 types of a weapon, and new players have no way of knowing about this system. The long announcedWhen this game launched it was full of home and wonder. It promised a lot and then, delivered very little. Launching with no major update, literally just removing the beta tag, the game still has only 2 game modes. Has a unexplained and very complicated system for heat if you have more than 2 types of a weapon, and new players have no way of knowing about this system. The long announced Community Warfare and heralded UI 2.0 have been "in the works" since closed beta and theres still no promise of them ever happening.

    To make matters worse the lead developers have sadly, very publicly stated that community feedback doesn't matter. A game that won't listen to feed back? Its solution to EVERYTHING is complicated hidden systems instead of simple balancing? Stay far far far away from this game.    … Expand
  13. PinguReviews
    Sep 19, 2013
    2
    False advertising once again to steal sales. Developers are filled with lies to take all the loyal Mechwarrior Fans money and then switch to another demographic, "casuals". All past promises and information about this game was just the "position at the time" the developers say and completed to form this game into a mech game that's inbetween Mechwarrior and Mechassault. Released articlesFalse advertising once again to steal sales. Developers are filled with lies to take all the loyal Mechwarrior Fans money and then switch to another demographic, "casuals". All past promises and information about this game was just the "position at the time" the developers say and completed to form this game into a mech game that's inbetween Mechwarrior and Mechassault. Released articles in magazines from them say that the game isn't just "walk to capture point and win or kill all the mechs" but that's literally what this game has been the whole time. Same article says the new gamemode will have bases to capture with automated turrets, this gamemode turns out to be exactly like the first one but now you have 5 or so points to capture to a reach capture score first. No turrets, no bases, and pretty mindless gameplay as well. Developers then try to sneak P2W features in the game to see if the forum backlash would be enough to keep it in. Luckily the forum community has stopped them from continuing and had them adjust there new feature system of consumables. Community Warfare, the feature we are all looking forward to, still has almost no information out and had it's release date constantly pushed back. Honestly at the rate this company works and how much they lie, I'd expect "CW" to be nothing but the same arena mode gameplay with a leaderboard and little bonuses at the end of the match. There is no way they can make enough maps within a couple years to make it so you actual play on a map and capture zones ingame. Speaking of slow paced, obvious balancing and content come out at a snail pace as well. Content I can let slip since they are a small team but simple balancing that is blatantly there staring at you, not so much. Finally one of my big concerns is that the game would stay "immersive" and stay a first person shooter. This was said by the devs MULTIPLE times out before and after the founders program was going on. After the developers have squeezed the money out of the core fanbase that loves mechwarrior, they turned there backs on them and are now looking to make this game as simplistic it can be to get more money out of a new fanbase. They are willing to do this at the cost of breaking immersion and ruining the chance of having this game a complex shooter that involves thinking and strategy. By the way, they weren't even aware that there third-person mode doesn't even help much in the "seeing your torso and legs" department but rather gave a new tool for users that know what they are doing to exploit the camera over corners and hills. This was warned to them the whole time but even when this feature is out, they are in denial saying it is "balanced" and does not give a advantage. This is not a "thinkings man shooter" nor a "mech sim". Just another arcade shooter that caters to apparently people who don't have the patience to learn torso/leg alignment (and yet they say they want a thinking shooter? makes no sense since it's lie for original fanbase). I could also say that this product is just simply a money grab for future projects since they simply don't care about there reputation nor there Mechwarrior game with all the lies.… Expand
  14. giant_snark
    Sep 20, 2013
    4
    MechWarrior Online is the skeletal shadow of the good game it might have been, lacking almost every promised feature over a year after open beta, over which time period almost no progress has been made. DirectX 11 support, lobbies, hit registration and netcode fixes, mech scaling problems, even the much-played-up Community Warfare and UI 2.0 updates are nowhere to be found, and are now aMechWarrior Online is the skeletal shadow of the good game it might have been, lacking almost every promised feature over a year after open beta, over which time period almost no progress has been made. DirectX 11 support, lobbies, hit registration and netcode fixes, mech scaling problems, even the much-played-up Community Warfare and UI 2.0 updates are nowhere to be found, and are now a year overdue. And in this state, Piranha Games has chosen to say the game is now "launched" instead of "beta".

    Currently, MWO is a 12v12 deathmatch with two flavors of capturing squares thrown in. In Assault you can capture the other base by sitting in the square, and in Conquest you can capture various squares around the map. And this is after explicit promises that base capturing would not just be sitting in squares, but rather would involve disabling defenses and systems in an actual base. All you can do is queue to be thrown into 12v12 deathmatches. The game has been in this state for over a year.

    In fact, in some ways the game has gotten worse. Graphics have been scaled back in an attempt to make the game more accessible to low-end hardware, but performance has not actually improved. Instead all the pretty features on weapons effects and textures have been removed, and a film grain has been added to cover it up.

    The weapons balancing has been a bewildering and incompetently managed mess. Fixes are slow to come, even many months after they are obvious issues, and what fixes are made demonstrate a complete misunderstanding of their own mechanics, and often create new problems. Flamers for the longest time did more heat to YOUR mech than to your target a problem that would only take a simple database tweak to fix, and which did not happen for over half a year. Now, the flamers are merely useless, rather than suicidal, as they still do not do much more heat to the target than to yourself. In response to a meta dominated by long-range weapons, PGI misinterpreted the problem as being about boating (using many of the same weapon), and introduced a nebulous undocumented feature called Ghost Heat, which adds extra heat when too many of the same weapon are fired within a short period. There is no way for a new player to know about this in the game it is nowhere mentioned or explained. So instead of directly rebalancing long-ranged weapons, PGI introduced complex and hamfisted "solutions" that didn't actually solve the problem. This kind of behavior has consistently been PGI's pattern. They are not competent.

    Piranha Games has not merely failed to implement most of what would make this a finished game they have instead implemented features that are entirely against what the playerbase wants and what the early supporters paid for. Despite promises that this game would be first-person-only, they broke that promise by then saying there would be 3PV, but with separate queues so you would not be forced to play with people using 3PV to peek from behind cover. Then they broke THAT promise by having no separate queues. The same went for promises that there would be no consumable coolant items, which provide a distinct in-game advantage to those who use them by reducing the heat that limits your firing rate.

    The promised features that would make MWO a good game are all in the future as they have been for over a year, after deadline after deadline has come and gone, and we have now reached launch with none of these features (Community Warfare, UI 2.0, lobbies, etc.) being in sight. The game as it stands today is barely worth of being called a beta demo, and as a launched game it completely fails to deliver. Playing this deathmatch arena can be fun for a while, but it does not have the features required to make it last, and PGI's history is strong evidence that those promised features will not be coming anytime soon.

    Mechwarrior is a great franchise. It's so sad what Piranha Games has done to it.    … Expand
  15. CakeBandit
    Sep 19, 2013
    1
    The development of MWO has been pockmarked by cashgrabs, unfulfilled promises, and a remarkable lack of remorse from the folks at the helm of it all. The people who bought into the founders package have been delivered a product that isn't anything like what was promised. Several have also been banned for requesting refunds, in addition to having their request refused. If you hold to theThe development of MWO has been pockmarked by cashgrabs, unfulfilled promises, and a remarkable lack of remorse from the folks at the helm of it all. The people who bought into the founders package have been delivered a product that isn't anything like what was promised. Several have also been banned for requesting refunds, in addition to having their request refused. If you hold to the idea that businesses should deliver the features they market, this game already doesn't deserve your attention, and certainly not your money.

    The game itself is an unbalanced, buggy mess that makes absolutely no effort to educate the uninitiated as to its labyrinthine mechanics. Some of which are completely glossed over and never mentioned in the mechlab. They punish you as a new player by forcing you to play using units configured around some horrifically un-optimized variant chained to the tabletop game from which this game is supposedly based. If you don't already know how mechwarrior works, the game isn't about to fix that. It's going to punish you for your ignorance and not let you do anything about it via its much touted customization.

    If by some miraculous chance you actually do figure something out, you're going to have to grind until you can purchase a chassis you can customize. I sure hope you know the differences between the different chassis variants, too, because they are most certainly not equals. After that, you grind to purchase equipment for it to do the things you want. This is when you're allowed to have "fun." "Fun" consists of playing a remarkably slow arena shooter against other poor folks stuck in trial mechs or people who have been living and breathing Battletech for decades. Of course, you can always pay them money to get past the part where you lose a lot in a bad unit. I don't think I really have to explain what's wrong with that.

    As a parting shot and general measure of quality, I'll just mention that there is no integrated VOIP. The game fully expects you to drop with random people as allies and coordinate like you've just dialed up the internet through your 56k modem and logged onto your favorite DooM server.

    There are dozens of other free to play arena shooters that you could spend your time and money on. Give this one a pass and go play some of those.    … Expand
  16. Jestun
    Sep 20, 2013
    3
    Sadly MWO is a shadow of the game it should be.

    First, lets look at what it is, ignoring what it was promised to be. Gameplay 6/10 Fairly solid core gameplay. The feel of the mech controls is good, the difference between torso aiming and arm aiming works well. However when you look beyond the basic core features it's not so good. One example would be the ghost heat system.    Sadly MWO is a shadow of the game it should be.

    First, lets look at what it is, ignoring what it was promised to be.

    Gameplay 6/10

    Fairly solid core gameplay. The feel of the mech controls is good, the difference between torso aiming and arm aiming works well. However when you look beyond the basic core features it's not so good.

    One example would be the ghost heat system. There is not a single part of the game which explains, or even acknowledges the existence of this system that adds additional heat which appears from nowhere when you fire too many of the same weapon types. But the only way to know what effect it will have on your build is to search the forums (a chore in itself given the search functionality), find the actual figures and do the math yourself. Although some of the fansite build calculators may now account for this.

    Graphics 5/10

    The CryEngine 3 is an engine that can really look good. And earlier in the beta it did look quite good. But as time went on they lowered the graphics to allow people with lower spec machines to play. While this in itself is a good thing, it should only be the *low* graphics settings that are decreased. Instead the maxed graphics settings have steadily decreased in quality.

    The graphics options themselves are very limited. Depth of Field (blur for distances not being focused on) can only be disabled by turning off all post processin and, film grain (digital blurryness over the entire screen) is forced on for example.

    On top of that everything from buildings to trees to abandoned vehicles are completely indestructible.

    Content 2/10

    2 game modes, both of which are team deathmatch with "stand in this spot to capture a seemingly randomly placed oil derrick" added in. Each battle effects 3 things your c-bills (ingame currency), your mech xp and your pilot xp. It is essentially one meaningless battle after another.

    Sound 5/10

    The weapon sound effects are quite good, but there is no soundtrack whatsoever and walking my 100 ton mech through a city seems like a very quiet affair.

    Features 1/10

    It has a friends list. That's about it.

    It doesn't have any way to chat other than within a match (and even there only via text, no VOIP integration). It doesn't have a lobby system to select a server to join. It doesn't have any "big picture" objectives the kind of thing community warfare was supposed to provide. You can only play solo or in teams of 2, 3, 4 or 12. It doesn't have any achievements.

    You can't even change the order that your mechs are displayed in the garage, and once you have a few you may well want to.

    Developer community interaction 1/10

    Regardless of what some people have posted in other reviews, this matters. Unlike in a single player game you are required to deal with the developers, even if that interaction is limited to downloading whatever patch they put out (something that is optional in a single player game, so understandably has less importance there).

    Unfortunately this is the biggest issue the game has. A quick Google search will find various gaming press articles if you want to read more about the developer community interaction, so I'll just say that they (specifically Russ) troll people on Twitter for critisism, write off the "core" playerbase (their words) as being the vocal minority, they announce changes, get dozens of pages of feedback showing exactly what is wrong with it and then implement it with exactly the flaws that the community repeatedly told them about, and much, much more.

    So that's what the game is, but what it's not is much more interesting and gives a real insight into the developers (who, as mentioned above, you will have to deal with if you play the game).

    What it's not is true to PGI's self-announced design pillars of the game. The core design pillars included no coolant flush, 1st person only simulation, role warfare and community warfare. Every one of these design pillars has been broken or delayed with little to no information given to the community about them.

    MWO was a kickstarter, and some people may well dispute that but a quick Google search will show the developers (PGI) and the publishers (IGP) both stating that it was, as well as various media outlets agreeing. While the founders packs never explicitly stated that the above design pillars would be met, the implication when you say "we are going to include these things, give us your money" is that you are paying money to support the development of the game as described to you.

    Sadly the end result is that the meaningless battle after battle make the game feel like nothing more than a low rate MOBA. And even judges against other MOBAs it's extremely lacking in content and basic features.    … Expand
  17. Crais
    Sep 17, 2013
    5
    MWO is fun for a while then it becomes a tedious grindfest. There are only 2 types of matches available at launch and a handful of maps. Numerous features are missing (DX 11 support, UI2.0, net code optimization) and community warfare, a large scale battle galaxy wide type that was sold as a core feature of the game, has no set deadline for being added.

    The developers of the game also    MWO is fun for a while then it becomes a tedious grindfest. There are only 2 types of matches available at launch and a handful of maps. Numerous features are missing (DX 11 support, UI2.0, net code optimization) and community warfare, a large scale battle galaxy wide type that was sold as a core feature of the game, has no set deadline for being added.

    The developers of the game also have a very poor track record of communication with the community and are often arrogant and rude to players who question balance issues or proposed features, such as the inclusion of the 3rd person camera mode (that was originally promised to not be included in the game).    … Expand
  18. eudaimonean
    Sep 22, 2013
    4
    A "Free to Play" title, MWO is the only game in town if you like oldschool stompy robots, and the developers know it. As a free game, the experience is enormously grindy, and as a paid game, the content is massively overpriced. MWO does deliver a unique experience, but ultimately the provided content is rather thin and still quite rough; as a competitive multiplayer game it lacks the depthA "Free to Play" title, MWO is the only game in town if you like oldschool stompy robots, and the developers know it. As a free game, the experience is enormously grindy, and as a paid game, the content is massively overpriced. MWO does deliver a unique experience, but ultimately the provided content is rather thin and still quite rough; as a competitive multiplayer game it lacks the depth and balance to sustain long-term interest despite how novel the mechanics are in the current shooter landscape.

    MWO seems designed to deliver the minimum needed to extract as much as possible from fanboy "whales" starved for a Mechwarrior experience. If that description does not apply to you, then MWO probably isn't the game for you either as there are far better values out there in the multiplayer shooter genre.    … Expand
  19. LordVishenka
    Sep 22, 2013
    4
    While the gameplay is pretty good and catchy, there is nothing more to look for in this game, especially is you are a Battletech fan, as in this case you are not the target audience, by the words of developers. The game is never going to be what it promised to be from the start a thought-out mech simulator in BT universe, with role warfare and massive faction war over the star map withWhile the gameplay is pretty good and catchy, there is nothing more to look for in this game, especially is you are a Battletech fan, as in this case you are not the target audience, by the words of developers. The game is never going to be what it promised to be from the start a thought-out mech simulator in BT universe, with role warfare and massive faction war over the star map with hundreds of planets, all made in CryEngine3. The game lacks not only stunning graphics promised in the early days and comparable at least to Crysis 1 on CryEngine1, it lacks any vital gameplay content, except for grinding over and over on the setting of just 6 maps and 2 game modes. And it is more than clear, that it is not going to change in the nearest decades, we'll just have some more mechs to grind in, and a couple more maps to grind on. Well, this game is not even a simulator! Not only the development of sim features ceased a long time ago, some of already implemented features were cut from the game in the early stages, since then several casual features have been imported to make the game more arcade. And the devs are doing it right in the eyes of protesting community, ignoring the core fans over and over again.
    Verdict: MWO had some potential and is still playable and even enjoyable in small doses, but it is already clear that destination of this game is, sadly, nowhere. Lack of interesting content, grinding, horrible UI, unwanted innovations, cancellation of promised features, bugs, pretty high prices and lots of disregard to community.
    Have to wait another 10 years for someone competent to pick up the franchise and give us a proper MechWarrior game.    … Expand
  20. Xianyu
    Sep 20, 2013
    4
    I give this game a 5 at most. A 4 for a really, really, really terrible development team.

    Right now, the game, from a gaming standpoint, is below average. Simply put, features are broken. The main one 'host state rewind' touted to fix the lag issue that causes your weapons to do no damage, is doing the exact opposite. As someone with a few hundred games, I can honestly say that many of    I give this game a 5 at most. A 4 for a really, really, really terrible development team.

    Right now, the game, from a gaming standpoint, is below average. Simply put, features are broken. The main one 'host state rewind' touted to fix the lag issue that causes your weapons to do no damage, is doing the exact opposite. As someone with a few hundred games, I can honestly say that many of my attacks simply do not land. Ever.

    Whether or not a weapon remains effective or not is completely at the whim of the Piranha Games employees who change their mind as often as they change as their clothes. They nerf this, buff that, and quite frequently either make a weapon completely useless, or so overpowered that two days after a patch it's all anyone will use. And there are no 'hotfixes'. These changes stay in for months at a time, leading to heavily biased weapon/mech metagames that migrate to new choices every few weeks.

    To date, the development team has gone back on foundimg principles, belittled those who complain about the changes, and outright ignore the vocal portion of their playerbase citing that they are 'a small portion of the demographic'. That's right. Founders are a 'small portion' and should be completely ignored.

    A short list of things they changed their minds about: Consumables. Said they'd never be in the game. They are. Thankfully, most of them are completely, utterly useless.
    3PV: If you haven't heard of this one, you don't know this game. The first documentation for this game said that it would NOT contain third-person in any way, shape or form.
    The c-bill nerf coming into launch: Several months ago, the patch notes claim that the nerf to earnings (somewhere in the realm of a 40-50% decrease for most players), was to 'balance' the amount of income because of the change to 24-player battlefields rather than 16. When this proved to be a massive nerf rather than a 'balance', PGI refused to comment on anything, until an 'ask the devs' and a podcast revealed that they did it deliberately to force people to grind longer. Agree with the nerf or not (85% of players don't), it was still placed in the PATCH NOTES as a 'balance'. And it follows a common vein of PGI outright lying to their customers.
    Hero Mechs: Only available to purchase for MC, the 'real life currency' of MWO. Many argue they are no better than normal mechs, but these mechs have a C-bill earnings bonus attached to them, and often have hardpoints and abilities that heavily follow the current 'metagame' trends. IE: Releasing a jump jet sniper mech when the jump-jetting sniper meta was prevalent. While not strictly pay-to-win, these mechs are often superior to common mechs of the same chassis, and can NOT be purchased with normal currency. This rings alarm bells.

    New players are lulled into a false sense of security with the 'cadet bonus'. You get near eight-million credits for your first twenty five games. After that many credits are accrued, your cadet bonus is gone. The heaviest mechs, the stalkers and atlas', cost 10 million credits. You will be lucky to be earning ten thousand credits a minute.

    In other words, an assault mech will cost you 20 hours of playing to earn. In an arena-based shooter with only two game modes.

    Weapons can cost anywhere from 10000 for a machine gun, to 700,000, or more.

    DHS, a 'required' upgrade for mechs, costs millions of dollars. Engines cost millions of dollars. Swapping armor or ARTEMIS costs millions. The different modules cost millions.

    In short, the game is too grindy, too samey, and too meta-gamey. Though don't worry, the veterans of MWO will be happy to tell you to 'ignore the grind' while they sit on their accounts with literally hundreds of millions of credits in them, gathered up from times when earnings weren't so cripplingly small.

    So, to summarize. The game is decently fun for a while. But any casual gamer will be turned off by the huge grind and exorbitant prices on the 'pay real money' function. Hardcore gamers willing to put up with the grind will be scared away by the incompetence of a team that balances on a LOWER SKILL LEVEL, instead of UPPER SKILL LEVEL. That's right. They perform balance on the low-skill gamers, not by observing the elite.

    PGI are either incompetent and honestly believe that their changes are for the betterment of the game and just can't see what they're doing wrong. Or they've got their heads so far up their collective asses that they don't even care what their core demographic is saying.

    I don't know which possibility bothers me more.

    I honestly think that, at this point, PGI are beyond help. They've alienated their once-hardcore fans and corrupted MWO with features attempting to pander towards 'casual' audiences, in spite of all protests.

    Clearly, PGI is on an island.

    Maybe this game should be, too.

    An island without you.    … Expand
  21. Shaddock
    Sep 21, 2013
    4
    Bottom line MWO was not ready to launch. On the surface you a presented with giant stompy robots online and that is all that should matter. However, lack of promised features, poor community relations, balance issues, and a lack of additional game modes or maps quickly turn what should be an amazing game into at best half a product.

    When the UI gets much needed changes, community    Bottom line MWO was not ready to launch. On the surface you a presented with giant stompy robots online and that is all that should matter. However, lack of promised features, poor community relations, balance issues, and a lack of additional game modes or maps quickly turn what should be an amazing game into at best half a product.

    When the UI gets much needed changes, community warfare is implemented, Direct X 11 is working, collisions are added, terrain stoppage is fixed, ghost heat is eliminated or clearly explained, etc this may be an amazing game. In the meantime there are other products worth your time, and certainly others that are more worth your money.    … Expand
  22. Oriius
    Sep 18, 2013
    4
    It pains me that I must give this game a 4 out of 10, however in it's current state it would be dishonest to give it anything more.

    the game lacks many of it's promised core game play such as community warfare (the end-game driving force of the game no less), role warfare, game modes(only 2 currently), factions and sadly a fair few other things. Many core design features have been    It pains me that I must give this game a 4 out of 10, however in it's current state it would be dishonest to give it anything more.

    the game lacks many of it's promised core game play such as community warfare (the end-game driving force of the game no less), role warfare, game modes(only 2 currently), factions and sadly a fair few other things.

    Many core design features have been dropped along the way too, such as a 1:1 timeline of the clan invasion, the game being first person only, the game not having a "coolant flush".

    The current UI is a mess, seemingly left over from the alpha stage, oddly running only in a windowed mode by design (as stated by the dev's themselves) causing issues with some resolutions.

    The games balance is similar to most starting games, swings back and forth of weapon systems being too strong or too weak, it would be unfair to mark down too much based on this currently as this is always a tough thing to get right at the best of times.

    Graphically the game at max settings looks very nice, though for it being the cry engine it does seem somewhat underwhelming, with the overall graphic level being lowered to allow for a larger range of computer levels to run the game (which is fair enough).

    The games art direction is very good, the new designs of old mechs is impressive, Alex Iglesias (the artist responsible) has done himself and battletech proud.

    As it stands the game basically plays and feels like an early beta, only stuffed with more monetization, such as oddly overpriced colours, camo patterns, and items. All mechs may also be bought for real money, with "hero mechs" a unique variant coming with a C-bill bonus (in-game money) being only available for real money, the prices of which can climb very high based on the weight of the mech.

    The game play can become somewhat repetitive due to lack of end-game content but at it's core is solid assuming one can overlook things such as hit reg issues.

    The initial game experience is also lacking for new players, with very little in the way of tutorials (a movement one was finally added), also lacking is an explanation of some systems such as "ghost heat" (a way to stop too many of a certain weapon being used at a time), one needs to dredge through the forums to find this information as it is not even mentioned in-game. Along with throwing the new player into a "trial mech" (which are for the most part taken from battle tech cannon), putting you against people in fully customized mechs, (makes for a harsh and quick death), combined with the matchmaking system that will drop newer players against the best players around, can leave a bad taste in the new players mouth.

    As it stands I would say if you like mechwarrior games or battletech, by all means give it a go, if not I'd say give it 6 months to a year. Either way I would suggest keeping your money firmly in your wallet/purse.

    Has potential, only question being can the developers rise to the task?    … Expand
  23. Ashiel
    Sep 19, 2013
    1
    Do you know what phrase is killing this game and enabling a snail's pace development cycle from PGI?

    "Just give it time." I've heard these words uttered since closed beta. Even before the founder's program. That was a YEAR ago. We have issues that were problems then and still are now. -Hit detection: Started out as slight netcode problem where you had to anticipate a mech's    Do you know what phrase is killing this game and enabling a snail's pace development cycle from PGI?

    "Just give it time."

    I've heard these words uttered since closed beta. Even before the founder's program. That was a YEAR ago. We have issues that were problems then and still are now.

    -Hit detection: Started out as slight netcode problem where you had to anticipate a mech's path and shoot a little ahead. Then got to the point that light mechs going 100+ km/h could never reliably be hit with a projectile weapon unless they were standing still (even that was a crap shoot at times).

    -C-bill grind: Every single time the income started to get a little better and that you didn't have to play literally a hundred matches to buy the cheapest stock assault mech? It gets "adjusted" so that it becomes a grind akin to everquest's poopsock events back in the day. There's incentivizing your player base to spend money on your premium time. And then there's putting the thumb screws on and only loosening them slightly when you pay for premium time.

    -Weapon balance: This has become a problem just like it was in previous Mechwarrior games. Most matches devolve into "poptarting" where whoever has the highest pinpoint alpha damage with long range weapons ends up winning in a lot of matches.

    -Scale: Mechs are too large for their size category and are too slow compared to their bigger cousins. So they get ripped apart. You only really see the extremes in matches now. Smaller and faster mechs versus bigger and chunkier assaults/heavies. The medium mech class is underutilized to an almost tragic degree. Part of it is the speed issue. The game's capped out at a rather low speed compared to previous games and the lore of the setting. (Note: this is because of netcode/hit detection issues bleeding over into balance).

    -Outright lying about core concepts/stances: The game was never supposed to have third person view. Then when it was going to have it. It was supposed to have split queues. But then even -that- wasn't brought in. We've had UI 2.0 on the "soon" time table for months now. We've had directx 11 supposedly being worked on since last year. When criticized for the supposed promise made to people who had crowd funded their game? "That was our position at the time." That's a rather funny way to say we changed our minds/lied to you.

    The only pros about this game are the lore and the intellectual property as a whole. Which they are doing their damndest it seems to milk as hard as they can because after only a few days of play, that's all this game really has going for it.

    It's a pity that we get this digital abomination to be the next game in the line of the mechwarrior franchise. Congrats PGI/IGP. What a stellar track record of exemplary performance you've shown yourself to have.

    Broken promises to people who paid you money, in some cases ludicrous sums. A release of content so abysmally slow that you had to break your core idea of locking yourself to a 1:1 time scale. An obvious mismanagement so extremely bad that multiple individuals in the forums who are veterans of the game industry were able to call out not only the exact development model you're using, but the most likely reasons why it's failing (hint: it's the people calling the shots combined with a team too small to get it done the right way).

    No surprise those posts got removed for "rules violations" despite having not a single rule violation in them even after the draconian bull that is being pulled there now. Hell, even posting reviews on metacritic that don't praise the game hard enough can result in your account being banned. Regardless of money being spent on it or not.    … Expand
  24. Keldor
    Sep 21, 2013
    4
    This game had so much potential. Giant robots shooting at each other? Sign me up. And while it certainly began to meet that potential early on, nearly everything that made it a great game has been watered down in an attempt to make the game more popular for a broad audience. Without that lost depth, the game doesn't have any true staying power... even with the eventual promise of anThis game had so much potential. Giant robots shooting at each other? Sign me up. And while it certainly began to meet that potential early on, nearly everything that made it a great game has been watered down in an attempt to make the game more popular for a broad audience. Without that lost depth, the game doesn't have any true staying power... even with the eventual promise of an extensive Community Warfare system (which as of launch, is not present).

    MWO will never be a sandbox game for people looking to carve out a robot empire with their friends and be part of a living, breathing community. It will be fun for a few months, until you realize all the mechs are just slight variations on a theme, and that all you're doing is playing a weak version of Call of Duty with robots.

    It's a shame that, yet again, the MechWarrior franchise is visited by a substandard game. There's so much lost potential in this series... maybe someday an independent developer (like Mechwarrior: Living Legends) will build something really solid that will stick. I had hoped MWO would be that game, but alas, it is not.    … Expand
  25. Flunkie
    Sep 20, 2013
    1
    Mechwarrior Online is a Battletech game in name only. It has the intellectual property, a few of the dozens of possible weapon systems, and the feel of piloting a mech. The graphics are OK for a game in this era. The main problem is that the game-play itself boils down to nothing more than a bigger and slower version of multi-player Call of Duty. The developer has repeatedly tweaked weaponMechwarrior Online is a Battletech game in name only. It has the intellectual property, a few of the dozens of possible weapon systems, and the feel of piloting a mech. The graphics are OK for a game in this era. The main problem is that the game-play itself boils down to nothing more than a bigger and slower version of multi-player Call of Duty. The developer has repeatedly tweaked weapon systems in a vain attempt at stopping players from finding and using the most lethal mech configurations possible. If their telemetry tells them that 60% of the players are employing the ERPPC successfully, and winning more matches with them than not winning, then the ERPPC will be altered so that nobody wants to use it any longer. When the herd of players then alter their mech designs to utilize the Gauss Rifle, because it has now become the weapon of choice, the developer will step in and nerf the Gauss Rifle. Then the players switch to heavily using Long Range Missiles because the developers decided that they weren't being used at all and doubled their damage. Well, you can guess what happens. There has been an endless cycle of this weapon “balancing”, and it has led to nowhere. The players always gravitate to what calculates out to be the best build; alpha strike, DPS, speed, and range. The developer is like a puppy chasing its tail in this regard.

    When you consider Mechwarrior as a game, you think of completing missions with some greater goal; a story arc, capturing planets, controlling a region of the galaxy, etc. The developers promised something called Community Warfare, which was supposed to have some kind grand strategy that would allow the MWO community to do more than fight in 12 on 12 matches. In theory, the 12 on 12 matches would mean more than just another win/loss in the player’s personal profile, there would be benefits or consequences to success or failure. This was not only never delivered, it seems to have simply disappeared from the table! Community Warfare is what the vast majority of core audience wants to be a part of, even if only a very small part-time role in. Not only has the developer failed to deliver, they simply have failed to understand the game and it audience, and seem to be focused on the minutia related to weapon specifics and bell curves for matching players. They are also very focused on bringing in a broader audience and have told their community that they don't really matter any more.

    The biggest failure developer has made is in its communication to its community or core audience. The developer has made numerous promises, both big and small that it has not kept, and as far as its community is concerned, probably never intended to keep. In short, they have broken their promises, or simply outright lied. They then had the audacity to tell the community that is upset by the broken promises that the community was not its target audience. It is hard to say what exactly the developer’s target audience is, but it apparently is not the following:

    Original founders that paid money to fund the development
    Players since the beginning of beta that paid money based on the promises that were made
    Anyone with a complaint about virtually any aspect of any promise that was broken
    Players that don’t want to play in or with 3rd person perspective players
    Players interested in Community Warfare
    Players wanting more than Assault or Conquest victory conditions for matches
    Players wanting more weapon systems than the set that was released during beta
    Players wanting something of a physics system that doesn't allow playing bumper cars in a match

    The developer appears to be targeting the following as its preferred audience:

    Players with little or no knowledge of Mechwarrior/Battletech
    Players so fascinated by package deals that they impulse buy
    Players more interested in paying money for decorations and paint than achieving any kind of goal
    Players with such a short attention span that they could not be bothered to learn anything complex
    Players that drop in for a few matches and have just enough fun to spend some money converting XP
    Players that are loners and don’t care about team coordination or communication
    Players uninterested in any kind of strategy, tactics, realism, physics, fire, water, or the wheel

    This review could go on and on, but the bottom line is that Mechwarrior is a one-third baked cake that came out tasting like something from the sewer. The developer’s condescending, and frankly insulting, communications to its core supporters about it’s broken promises and lies should be enough to make anyone wary of this game. If it is not, then you are a member of their target audience and they will be expecting to see you logging on soon.    … Expand
  26. Sullus
    Sep 19, 2013
    1
    Das Game ist die reinste verarsche so gut wie kein Inhalt.Ständig werde Features nach hinten verschoben
    seit locker 1 Jahr wartet man auf CW und es kommt gar nix selbst keine neuen infos.seit den c-bill nerf (Ingame geld) lohnt es sich auch nicht ein Premium Account oder Premium Mech zu kaufen.
  27. Ronner
    Sep 19, 2013
    1
    There is nothing to the game of MechWarrior Online.

    A stand up shooting game with no depth, but the one to your wallet.

    Overpriced and simple graphics, walk shot build walk shot.

    I am a fan of shooting games. However, MechWarrior is not worth the money or investment of time.
  28. heywhynot
    Sep 19, 2013
    3
    The word that sums up this game is "disappointment". The art team is amazing, and at its base it could be a fun game. But the development team has managed to push out an incoherent under-documented repetitive mess. There's no variety in game play and the devs have shown that they would rather spend their days on no value added features then tweak XML for the sake of balance.
  29. Kolimar
    Sep 21, 2013
    3
    Very disappointing. This game hold many promises, and failed to deliver them.
    First off, players were told by the developers that Community Warfare and an improved UI, which are two essential features for an online multiplayer game would come in first quarter 2013. Then they pushed it to Summer 2013. Then to launch. Now here we are, with still nothing but two gamemodes that are    Very disappointing. This game hold many promises, and failed to deliver them.
    First off, players were told by the developers that Community Warfare and an improved UI, which are two essential features for an online multiplayer game would come in first quarter 2013. Then they pushed it to Summer 2013. Then to launch. Now here we are, with still nothing but two gamemodes that are essentially the same, and a dozen of maps. There is literally NOTHING ELSE.
    Oh yes there is :
    - Third person view, which players did not want, but was implemented anyway.
    - Consumables which again players did not want, but were implemented anyway.
    - Hero mechs, which are basically improved variants of the standard 21 mechs of the game. They are just here to make players spend real money on it and gain an advantage with XP and money boost.
    - Poorly balanced weapons, and an atrocious hardpoint system that allows any absurd loadout that you can think of, and basically makes some mechs irrelevant (example the Stalker has similar hardpoints to the Awesome, but with more weight capacity.)

    To sum up, this game smells like straight amateurism, and should not be considered a triple A game by any means. Hell I would even have preferred a good indie game. But after all, what would you expect from the guys who made Duke Nukem Forever     … Expand
  30. Stormwolf
    Sep 18, 2013
    3
    This game had a lot of potential that was wasted. I'm a long running Mechwarrior and Battletech fan and I'm incredibly disappointed with this release.

    The games of old had multiplayer tacked on as an afterthought, but they still had a better setup for running games. In MWO you can only run 12 vs 12 matches, there are no options for smaller teams or creating a stock only game. New    This game had a lot of potential that was wasted. I'm a long running Mechwarrior and Battletech fan and I'm incredibly disappointed with this release.

    The games of old had multiplayer tacked on as an afterthought, but they still had a better setup for running games. In MWO you can only run 12 vs 12 matches, there are no options for smaller teams or creating a stock only game. New players are forced to face min maxed designs piloted by veterans with only non-optimized stock designs. The result of this is that the grind is unbearable for newbies.

    Mechwarrior is set in the Battletech universe, a universe with a ton of lore and fluff, unfortunately nothing is done with this to enhance the game. There are no faction mechs, no maps of iconic locations and worst of all it's set in 3050 and nothing is done with the Clan Invasion.

    There are only two modes, assault and conquest. These are rather horribly out of place for a Mechwarrior game and belong in a bread and butter shooter. Mechwarrior is supposed to be a simulator, it's about capturing factories, defending convoys, withdrawing to dropships,etc, not sitting next to a mining platform for points.

    A large problem here is that the devs are incapable of properly developing this game due to their initial unfamiliarity with Cryengine. Another problem is that they outright ignored any and all feedback from their Beta testers to properly balance the game.

    The devs are rather prone to including unwanted items ingame. Early in development we were promised that we would get a decent Mechwarrior sim with 1pv, now we have a 3pv game with coolant flush consumables. Rather immersion breaking for the people who backed this project with their money. It is ofcourse impossible to get a Founders refund at this point.

    The only positive thing about this game are the mechs and their designs. I really have to hand it to the concept artist and the 3D modellers, they did a good job at updating the classic designs.

    Check it out if you are a casual Mechwarrior fan and judge for yourself. Hardcore Battletech fans will be deeply disappointed with this shallow underdeveloped game.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

13
#13 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
96
#96 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
68

Mixed or average reviews - based on 10 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 10
  3. Negative: 0 out of 10
  1. IGN Italia
    Sep 14, 2014
    85
    Nice gameplay and deep strategy for the latest incarnation of Mechwarrior. Too bad it lacks any kind of Single Player content.
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  2. PC Gamer
    Nov 4, 2013
    83
    Slightly overpriced, but a more than worthy successor to one of PC gaming’s greatest franchises that nails the important part: combat.
    Read full review
  3. Multiplayer.it
    Oct 22, 2013
    65
    MechWarrior Online does a pretty good job in balancing out the gameplay and gives you lots of BattleMechs, weapons and items to buy, but it's got only two game modes and it's definitely not that fun.
    Read full review
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