[this review contains no spoilers on the main story beyond the base tutorial ]


BATTLETECH™ is a turn-based strategy game that requires the player to maintain and grow your Mercenary outfit in which you have to manage your C-bills (Battletechs standard currency) with repairs, rearmament, and maintenance of your ancient BattleMechs, as well as the expenses of keeping your ship afloat and paying your mercs' as well as keeping everything in order ranging from preventing your mech pilots from fighting over a cup of coffee in ship text based events as the days go by...

That is half the battle, the other half is on the battlefield that can give you the sweet sweet salvage you are looking for and to earn some C-bills by doing contracts... however not all missions are as they seem at first. The battlefield itself requires great tactical skill in what is strategic outside of battle. You have to manage everything you would expect in this game... where your units go, expecting what the enemy would do in response, your heat which is affected by the environment and terrain, Ammunition, your current armour and weapon status, etc.

This takes everything great about BattleTech (the tabletop game) and encapsulates everything of the BattleTech lore and universe. From the text based events too the starmap and the biography of the characters and their story...

It gives you a rich BattleTech experience if you are looking for one but do not fret if you do not know all your lore and terms! The game does highlight new terms and words as they are highlighted in the text in which you can hover your mouse over it which will give a drop down text box which fills you in on the details!

I would highly recommend this game if you are a fan of the universe and tabletop, or general RTS's! The story of BattleTech is best described as a space ‘Game of Thrones’, if this game sparks your interest in other games then I do suggest MechWarrior: Online for a free to play multiplayer experience and the upcoming game MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries! Both will give a first person experience! As well as buying the BattleTech books or pdf’s too!



○ Graphics: ★★★★☆, Good!
○ Aesthetic: ★★★★★, Great!

The Graphics for a TTS game is adequate but some improvements can be made such as to do with the lighting/ shading. Some textures could be improved but overall it is a pleasing to look at game and I am just nitpicking!


○ Tutorial: ★★★☆☆, Average!
○ Controls: ★★★★☆, Good!
○ Gameplay: ★★★★★, Great!
○ Optimisation: ★★★☆☆, Average!
○ Content: ★★★★★, Great!

The Tutorial is average, it teaches you the basics of the game for a new timer to a game of this style but anything more advance requires player written tutorials, guides, etc. I heard there is plans for revisions but currently until an update this will be my only comment on the matter. Just remember to eject if things go bad! It’s the button next to the mechs name. The controls do the job well but it isn’t anything too fancy while the Gameplay captures everything great of the tabletop games adequately while also simplifying it including some customisation options for your mechs. The game on release has been rather buggy, mostly dependent on your system and such and this is currently the top priority for the post release updates. This game has a lot of content and I am currently 40 hours in and still yet to find any shimmer of me reaching an end yet! I only lightly played multiplayer and enjoyed it but there is still a lot of the game left for me!


TABLE TOP RULE ENTHUSIASTS
BattleTech has changed the crit sizes for weapons and mechs in attempt to (and I consider successfully) simplify the mechlab. Some BT fans out there may be upset with this however I think this simplification allows us to not worry of many head-ache things like managing with crit splitting, or making sure you have 10 heatsinks minimum. Etc.
All mechs have a stock loadout accurately to their BT counterpart and the external heat sinks have been thrown into the engine. You can play the entire game as if it’s 100% Table Top rules in construction to suit your needs.

PRONOUNS
“They”, yes. This game allows the user to use “they” as their pronoun along with the two binary ones. Some players for some reason had a large fit over this and over exaggerate the impact of it. It isn’t mandatory to use and you only ever see the option to have it during the character creation menu. Some complain that it is propaganda and so on however it isn’t a gender and it is just a gender neutral term, such words exist in many other countries and languages. After all English does have the most gender neutral words amongst other languages as we do not even have a gendered version of the word table, toilet, car, etc…

I find it to be a silly over reaction for those to leave a negative review and even demand a refund or threaten to pirate the game over a singular option in the character creation menu. If it pains you so much you can choose to go to the lengths of modding it out of the game if it upsets you to know it exists there in the character creation menu. However it shouldn’t impact your experience at all.


I would say this game is a solid yes, by far one of the better games out there and with hopes of future expansions and full fledged campaign DLC’s venturing potentially to other time periods of BattleTech like the Clan Invasion of 3050’s.

It is great if you are new or old to BattleTech and the game will only get more optimized and better from now! There has already been some QoL improvements and bug fixes post launch already and it already shows a difference in my so far already bug-less play through.

[this review contains no spoilers on the main story beyond the base tutorial ] [h1]GENERAL OVERVIEW[/h1] [b]BATTLETECH[/b]™ is a turn-based strategy game that requires the player to maintain and grow your Mercenary outfit in which you have to manage your C-bills (Battletechs standard currency) with repairs, rearmament, and maintenance of your ancient BattleMechs, as well as the expenses of keeping your ship afloat and paying your mercs' as well as keeping everything in order ranging from preventing your mech pilots from fighting over a cup of coffee in ship text based events as the days go by... That is half the battle, the other half is on the battlefield that can give you the sweet sweet salvage you are looking for and to earn some C-bills by doing contracts... however not all missions are as they seem at first. The battlefield itself requires great tactical skill in what is strategic outside of battle. You have to manage everything you would expect in this game... where your units go, expecting what the enemy would do in response, your heat which is affected by the environment and terrain, Ammunition, your current armour and weapon status, etc. This takes everything great about BattleTech (the tabletop game) and encapsulates everything of the BattleTech lore and universe. From the text based events too the starmap and the biography of the characters and their story... It gives you a rich BattleTech experience if you are looking for one but do not fret if you do not know all your lore and terms! The game does highlight new terms and words as they are highlighted in the text in which you can hover your mouse over it which will give a drop down text box which fills you in on the details! I would highly recommend this game if you are a fan of the universe and tabletop, or general RTS's! The story of BattleTech is best described as a space ‘Game of Thrones’, if this game sparks your interest in other games then I do suggest MechWarrior: Online for a free to play multiplayer experience and the upcoming game MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries! Both will give a first person experience! As well as buying the BattleTech books or pdf’s too! [h1]VISUALS[/h1] ○ Graphics: ★★★★☆, Good! ○ Aesthetic: ★★★★★, Great! The Graphics for a TTS game is adequate but some improvements can be made such as to do with the lighting/ shading. Some textures could be improved but overall it is a pleasing to look at game and I am just nitpicking! [h1]GAMEPLAY[/h1] ○ Tutorial: ★★★☆☆, Average! ○ Controls: ★★★★☆, Good! ○ Gameplay: ★★★★★, Great! ○ Optimisation: ★★★☆☆, Average! ○ Content: ★★★★★, Great! The Tutorial is average, it teaches you the basics of the game for a new timer to a game of this style but anything more advance requires player written tutorials, guides, etc. I heard there is plans for revisions but currently until an update this will be my only comment on the matter. Just remember to eject if things go bad! It’s the button next to the mechs name. The controls do the job well but it isn’t anything too fancy while the Gameplay captures everything great of the tabletop games adequately while also simplifying it including some customisation options for your mechs. The game on release has been rather buggy, mostly dependent on your system and such and this is currently the top priority for the post release updates. This game has a lot of content and I am currently 40 hours in and still yet to find any shimmer of me reaching an end yet! I only lightly played multiplayer and enjoyed it but there is still a lot of the game left for me! [h1]DISCLAIMERS[/h1] [b]TABLE TOP RULE ENTHUSIASTS[/b] BattleTech has changed the crit sizes for weapons and mechs in attempt to (and I consider successfully) simplify the mechlab. Some BT fans out there may be upset with this however I think this simplification allows us to not worry of many head-ache things like managing with crit splitting, or making sure you have 10 heatsinks minimum. Etc. All mechs have a stock loadout accurately to their BT counterpart and the external heat sinks have been thrown into the engine. You can play the entire game as if it’s 100% Table Top rules in construction to suit your needs. [b]PRONOUNS[/b] “They”, yes. This game allows the user to use “they” as their pronoun along with the two binary ones. Some players for some reason had a large fit over this and over exaggerate the impact of it. It isn’t mandatory to use and you only ever see the option to have it during the character creation menu. Some complain that it is propaganda and so on however it isn’t a gender and it is just a gender neutral term, such words exist in many other countries and languages. After all English does have the most gender neutral words amongst other languages as we do not even have a gendered version of the word table, toilet, car, etc… I find it to be a silly over reaction for those to leave a negative review and even demand a refund or threaten to pirate the game over a singular option in the character creation menu. If it pains you so much you can choose to go to the lengths of modding it out of the game if it upsets you to know it exists there in the character creation menu. However it shouldn’t impact your experience at all. [h1]SHOULD YOU BUY IT?[/h1] I would say this game is a solid yes, by far one of the better games out there and with hopes of future expansions and full fledged campaign DLC’s venturing potentially to other time periods of BattleTech like the Clan Invasion of 3050’s. It is great if you are new or old to BattleTech and the game will only get more optimized and better from now! There has already been some QoL improvements and bug fixes post launch already and it already shows a difference in my so far already bug-less play through.