Wertzone Classics: BattleTech: Mercenary Collection

AD 3022. The Inner Sphere of human space is embroiled in the closing stages of the Third Succession War, a series of conflicts between the Great Houses for power and territory. Largely unaffected by the conflict is the Aurigan Coalition, a minor power among the Periphery States which has flourished under the rule of House Arano. Lady Kamea Arano is about to take her place as the head of the house when her uncle launches a brutal coup. Kamea disappears and one of her guardians, a MechWarrior of impressive skill, is rescued by a band of mercenaries. Three years later Kamea re-emerges with an offer to her former allies to help her reclaim her throne.

Originally released in 2018, BattleTech is a turn-based strategy game set in the shared BattleTech and MechWarrior universe. That universe began as a tabletop wargame but expanded into board games, novels, video games and even a short-lived animated series. Created by Harebrained Schemes and with the original BattleTech co-creator Jordan Weisman in charge of development, it was the first BattleTech video game that got close to the franchise's original roots.

It was reasonably successful, and has since been re-released with its three expansions (Flashpoint, Urban Warfare and Heavy Metal) included. So the question is it worthwhile picking up the game with these additions included? My original 2018 review of BattleTech can be found here.

To recap, the game has you playing a MechWarrior, the pilot of a BattleMech, a massive, building-sized walking death machine. MechWarriors are the elite troops of the 31st Century, a time period when five great powers and numerous smaller ones and mercenaries fight for control of the Inner Sphere, the vast region of space claimed by humanity (there are no aliens in the BattleTech universe). Over the course of a lengthy story-driven campaign, interspersed with huge numbers of side-missions and procedurally-generated jobs, you build up a mercenary company from scratch, hiring pilots, training their skills, buying or salvaging more BattleMechs, equipping them and fighting in detailed, tactically tense engagements on a variety of planets. The game contains a number of interesting, interlocking systems which gives rise to an immense amount of satisfying player choice, realised via chunky, engaging combat missions. The game is effectively XCOM: Pacific Rim, and is every bit as fun and compelling as that sounds.

The original game did have problems, though, with too-long animations and a difficulty curve that was less of a curve and more of a barbed-wire wall, with occasional spikes making progress difficult without a lot of tedious grinding.

The Mercenary Collection, via the three expansions included within, immediately eliminates these problems via a host of new features. The most notable is that the game's engine has been reworked and a number of new options presented, which dramatically speed up gameplay by allowing you to skip more tedious animations or remove mid-battle animated sequences altogether. There is a more granular difficulty setting for those who find the game too much of a cakewalk or too tough. There are more mid-game special events to liven things up, and the DLC missions and features integrate into the campaign, giving you a greater variety of maps to fight on, as well as more mechs and weapons to deploy in battle.

The game also gives you the opportunity to start in "Career Mode," which jettisons the storyline altogether in favour of a new setup with you taking on the task of setting up your mercenary company from scratch and guiding them across the Rimward Periphery without any story material to worry about. This mode is fun for veteran players who know what they are doing, as they can immediately access some of the DLC material that is otherwise gated until you finish the campaign. For newcomers I'd recommend following the story, which does a better job of managing the difficulty curve of the game.

The first DLC, Flashpoint, adds a number of new story-based mini-campaigns (aka flashpoints) to the game. These campaigns have their own stories, characters and twists and turns, and can give you a lot of rewards and experience. There's some fun elements in these missions, and they add a fairly large number of handcrafted missions which relieve the occasional grind of procedurally-generated, somewhat bland missions. However, the flashpoints oddly don't trigger until you've finished the story campaign, which oddly leaves you too heavily levelled for the low-level flashpoints (which will become a cakewalk). The flashpoints are best experienced in Career Mode, but the tougher missions do have some twists that may check even experienced MechWarriors, such as missions that force the player to use Light or Medium 'Mechs, forcing them to leave the Assaults at home.

The second DLC, Urban Warfare, introduces the new city environment which is a huge amount of fun to play in. Skyscrapers break sightlines, and jump jet-equipped 'Mechs can suddenly find themselves with a lot more tactical options than before (though also run the risk of the building they are standing on being shot out from under them). Ten more flashpoints are added with interesting new storylines.

The third DLC, Heavy Metal, adds multiple new BattleMechs, including the mobile artillery Bullshark 'Mech, and tons of new weapons, including the COIL laser which can make Light 'Mechs much more formidable weapons platforms. The expansion also features a new story campaign that ultimately pits the player's company in the middle of a showdown between two of the BattleTech universe's most formidable warriors, the Bounty Hunter and the Black Widow.

These expansions add a lot more content and variety to the game and, like the Enemy Within expansion for XCOM: Enemy Unknown or the War of the Chosen expansion for XCOM 2, they improve on the original game as well, taking something that was already very solid and making it richer, more interesting and more compelling. This version of the game also allows for much greater modding capability, and the mods available via Nexus are impressive, with some extending the game's setting to incorporate the entire Inner Sphere and extending the timeline to bring in those old BattleTech favourite antagonists, the Clans.

BattleTech: Mercenary Collection (*****) is, at least for now, the definitive version of the BattleTech experience and an outstandingly rich, turn-based strategy game. It is available on PC now (and is currently on a reasonably generous deal on Steam).

BattleTech

AD 3022. The Inner Sphere of human space is embroiled in the closing stages of the Third Succession War, a series of conflicts between the Great Houses for power and territory. Largely unaffected by the conflict is the Aurigan Coalition, a minor power among the Periphery States which has flourished under the rule of House Arano. Lady Kamea Arano is about to take her place as the head of the house when her uncle launches a brutal coup. Kamea disappears and one of her guardians, a MechWarrior of impressive skill, is rescued by a band of mercenaries. Three years later Kamea re-emerges with an offer to her former allies to help her reclaim her throne.

BattleTech is a turn-based strategy game, set in the shared BattleTech and MechWarrior universe which has been home to a tabletop miniatures game, a roleplaying game and multiple video games for thirty-five years, as well as over a hundred novels and even a short-lived animated series in the 1990s. Produced by Harebrained Schemes, who previously created the three acclaimed Shadowrun Returns RPGs (Dead Man's Switch, Dragonfall and Hong Kong), and designed by Jordan Weisman, the original co-creator of the entire franchise, the game has arrived with a fair bit of hype and a (mostly) positive reception.

The game plays in a manner similar to the recent Firaxis XCOM games, with a strategic section between missions where you can re-arm and repair your forces, recruit new troops and upgrade your base; and the turn-based, tactical combat section of the game. The strategic section is set on board a spacecraft, initially the very cramped and awkward Leopard and later on the more impressive and spacious Argo. You can upgrade the Argo so it can hold more BattleMechs (building-sized humanoid death vehicles) and repair them more quickly, but you can also add what appear to be more frivolous additions such as as a zero-G swimming pool and a 3D entertainment system. These appear pointless but give your pilots additional Morale Points which they can spend in battle to pull off special moves; whether you agreed to host Burger Night might determine later on if your pilot can core-shot an Assault 'Mech that's just about to wipe out your team. You can also wander around the ship and talk to the crew, which is initially entertaining until you realise the crew's dialogue choices very, very rarely update with new information.

The game has a storyline which you can follow, but crucially you can go off-course at any time to pursue side-missions. The game procedurally generates missions which you can undertake for money, salvage and to gain experience for your MechWarriors. The game doesn't make it entirely clear that pursuing side-missions is not optional: if you just try to pursue the story missions one after another, you'll rapidly find the enemies escalating beyond your ability to handle. Taking time between story missions to do other jobs and improve your team is essential. Thanks to a handy starmap, you can visit several dozen systems spread between half a dozen or so factions, with jobs running from simple search-and-destroy missions to base defence to escort.

Once you've picked a mission, you can choose which 'Mechs to use and how to outfit them. The game's tutorials are extremely basic and don't do a great job of explaining 'Mech customisability. Each 'Mech design (there are 36 in the game, with a further 22  model variations) has different hardpoints for weapons, ammo and equipment, such as jump jets and heat sinks. Your weapon choice is key in the game, with Auto Cannons doing tremendous damage but also being incredibly large and heavy, and requiring a separate ammo feed. Long-range missiles can inflict small amounts of damage on enemies at extreme range, but of course hit them enough times with enough missiles and you can take them out before they even enter close-weapons range. Short-range missiles are far more powerful, but are only effective at short range. Laser and plasma weapons have impressive range and don't require ammo, but generate a lot of heat and aren't great at taking out armour. If you find you can't carry all the guns you want, you can make room by stripping off armour...which is great until you realise you've stripped off too much armour and now have a colossal walking arsenal of death which will drop dead if a fly sneezes at it.

This juggling of load-out options is tremendous fun, especially once you have a handle on what decisions will have the most noticeable impact on the battlefield and you can access to special weapons with bonus damage factors (identified by a "+" scene after their name), but again the game leaves a lot of this information unstated and you have to pick it up as you go along.

Once these decisions have been made the game switches to a 3D battlemap. Initially you can send your 'Mechs scurrying around simultaneously, but that ends when the enemy enters sensor range. At that point you can order your 'Mechs to take up new positions, seek cover in forests or behind hills, jump-jet up onto a handy mountain, use a sensor lock to identify the target (allowing you to rain long-range fire on them) or race into visual range and start the slugfest. Combat is turn-based, but is oddly based on mobility: how far your 'Mech moved before firing determines its Evasive skill, which the enemy must overcome before they can hit you. Taking down an enemy 'Mech can be accomplished by slugging away, or (if you have enough Morale Points) making called shots on particular parts of the enemy machine. Destroy the hard-to-hit cockpit and you can capture the enemy 'Mech intact, blow off its legs and you can take the torso off (and if you pick up more salvage from the same model later on, you can patch it back into service) and so on. Particularly entertaining is taking on an enemy 'Mech laden with cannons and missiles, as if you hit the part of the body where the ammo is stored you can set off a chain reaction and blow the whole 'Mech up.

As well as dealing with positioning, facing (if you take a lot of damage on one side of your 'Mech, you can spin around in the next round and present a different armour facing to the enemy) and weapons, you also have to manage heat. Relying on lasers and plasma weapons a lot generates a lot of heat. If you go over the heat threshold, the 'Mech will start heat damage; go too far over it and your 'Mech will shut down for a round, or (much more rarely) explode. As a result, judicious choices have to be made each round on what weapons to use on what targets (an optional ability allows your pilots to target multiple enemy 'Mechs in the same round of fire) and when running into a river to cool off is a good idea. Your 'Mechs' heat management is also impacted by the environment: polar missions will allow you to fire a lot more often before overheating, whilst for a desert mission you may want to ditch the energy weapons altogether in favour of cooler ballistics.

On top of that you also have stability to worry about: BattleMechs are top heavy and can be knocked over by ballistic and missile fire, or smacked over in melee combat (ah yes, 'Mechs can literally punch one another as well). Falling 'Mechs injure their pilots and become much more vulnerable to called shots.

The result is a constantly shifting, extremely fascinating game of rock-paper-scissors-plasma beam, one that you have to re-evaluate as the game continues. There's a lot to keep track of, but also a lot of fun ways of exploiting the rules to find the optimal set-up. On top of this there are your individual pilots or MechWarriors to look after. They gain experience between missions and this unlocks special abilities, as well as giving them better aim and defence. Sometimes you can win a mission, but you may have lost a favourite pilot and a hard-earned rare weapon in the process, and will have to choose between reloading or accepting the loss and carrying on.

Once you get to grips with this information - it sounds more daunting than it actually proves in-game - BattleTech sings. The customisability and character advancement becomes a compelling game in its own right, and the combat missions become great exercises in tactical skill. Like the XCOM games, BattleTech's systems are so well-designed that apparently insurmountable odds and unwinnable missions can often be overcome by stepping back and coming at the situation from a different angle. It's surprising how much of a difference a single weapon change, a single morale-boosted ability or a single change of 'Mech can make to a tricky battle.

The game could be a bit better in how all of this information is presented. The tutorials are exceptionally basic and the finer points of how the game works only emerge through playing. There are also a few minor technical issues: the time it takes to move between screens and menus is somewhat longer than it should be, and occasional visual bugs (such as the camera choosing to sit behind a mountain or tree rather when it should be showing an enemy 'Mech blowing up) irritate. Some reviewers have complained of the animations being a bit slower than they'd like. I didn't notice this myself, but there are menu options to fix this and even a few mods to speed things up if it becomes a major issue.

The game's biggest problem, ultimately, may also be seen as its greatest strength. Harebrained Schemes' previous project, the Shadowrun Returns trilogy, was excellent but criticised for the short length of each game, lack of optional side-content and lack of replayability. BattleTech certainly doesn't suffer from that, with an infinite number of procedurally-generated missions (soon to be expanded through DLC) and a truly vast number of options making each run through the game's story potentially very different. However, the game's reliance on these side-missions and the need to play them to get better equipment and skills - "grinding", to use the common parlance - threatens to make the game very repetitive. My initial run through the game lasted 54 hours, which is a huge amount of time to spend watching robots shoot other robots, and monotony occasionally threatened to set in during a mid-game period when I had to grind to get enough money and heavy 'Mechs to proceed to the next story mission.

But looking past that, the game is certainly rewarding, with a number of interesting systems to delve into and tweak. The graphics are decent (but not exceptional, belying the game's low budget), the sound is punchy and the music is excellent. The story is fairly standard but well-told with some great characters. Some of the story missions are exceptionally well-designed and fiendishly challenging as well. Best of all, the tactical combat and mercenary-management sides of the game come together to create something compelling, fresh and interesting, once you understand how it all works.

BattleTech (****) is available now for PC. Console versions may follow depending on the game's initial sales, and both free DLC and paid expansions on the way.

Franchise Familiariser: BattleTech

This is the year of BattleTech. A brand-new strategy video game just came out (and is excellent), another video game is due at the end of the year and both the miniatures wargame and the roleplaying game are getting refreshed this year. There’s more interest in the franchise than there has been in maybe a decade, but what to do if you’re intrigued but have no idea what it’s all about? Time for a Franchise Familiariser course!

The second edition of BattleTech and the first to use that name, released in 1985.

The Basics

BattleTech (and its related brand, MechWarrior) – not be confused with Robotech – is a franchise that merges elements of space opera, military science fiction, fantasy and Japanese manga and anime. It was originally created as a tabletop wargame, followed by a pen-and-paper RPG, but gained its greatest exposure through video games, a lengthy series of novels and a short-run animated series which ran for half a season in 1994.

BattleTech was created by Jordan Weisman and L. Ross Babock III for FASA Corporation in 1984 as a tabletop wargame. The original idea had been to create a wargame using large, human-piloted robots known as BattleMechs or ‘mechs. Originally called BattleDroids, the game had to change its name after a few months due to a copyright claim by Lucasfilm (who claimed that they had copyrighted “droids” as part of their Star Wars franchise). A companion tabletop roleplaying game, MechWarrior, was published in 1986. The first BattleTech video games, The Crescent Hawk’s Inception and The Crescent Hawk’s Revenge, were released in 1988 and 1990 respectively.

The franchise received a significant boost in popularity, however, through the MechWarrior video game series. The original MechWarrior (1989) was well-received but it was MechWarrior 2 (1995) that took the series to new heights. Released at exactly the right moment to capitalise on 3D graphics cards and more powerful PCs, the game was a huge success. It was followed by MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries (1996), MechWarrior 3 (1999), MechWarrior 4: Vengeance (2000) and MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries (2002).

In 2001 FASA almost went bust and sold the BattleTech and MechWarrior properties to WizKids. In 2003 WizKids was bought by Topps but continued to release new material under the WizKids name. They have also provided companies such as FanPro and Catalyst Games with licences. Since 2007, Catalyst Game Labs has been releasing new versions of the classic wargame and the roleplaying game, whilst Piranha Studios and Harebrained Schemes have released new video games.

2018-19 has been dubbed the “year of BattleTech”, with two new video games (BattleTech from Harebrained and MechWarrior 5 from Piranha) and a refreshed version of the wargame and roleplaying game on the way from Catalyst.

MUCH MORE AFTER THE JUMP

BATTLETECH secures April 24 release date

Harebrained Schemes have confirmed that their new BattleTech video game will be available on 24 April.

The new game is a turn-based wargame following a bunch of mercenary MechWarriors as they help Kamea Arano retake her position as head of her family and ruler of her homeworld, having been deposed in a coup. The game unfolds through a dynamic strategic campaign, with you choosing which world to attack (or liberate) next and what missions to undertake, and then a 3D battle mode where you take your 'mechs into combat. You can buy new 'mechs and upgrade your equipment between engagements.

BattleTech has been created by team led by Jordan Weisman, who co-created the original BattleTech wargame back in the 1980s. 2018 is set to be a major year for the venerable mech franchise, with the pen-and-paper miniatures game and roleplaying games both getting a relaunch, along with a new instalment of the real-time, first-person MechWarrior spin-off video game series at the end of the year.

BATTLETECH to hit PC in April

The turn-based strategy game BattleTech has a release date: April 2018, which is next month (effectively). When in April? Dunno, but I'm assuming 30 April and if it launches earlier than that, I'll be very happy.

BattleTech is based on the BattleTech/MechWarrior universe created back in the 1980s as a tabletop wargame and roleplaying game. In the 1990s it became a bestselling video game series, particularly in the MechWarrior and MechCommander series. Piranha Games have kept the flame burning with MechWarrior Online and the upcoming first-person action game MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, but BattleTech has excited a lot of people for returning to the turn-based roots of the series and for being created by Jordan Weisman, the original co-creator of the series who has already created three excellent games based on his other well-known franchise, Shadowrun.

The game will incorporate a campaign mode where you choose what mission to do next and outfit and upgrade your mechs before switching to a 3D battlemap where you fight for dominance and victory, making full use of terrain, jet packs and massive missile volleys of explodorama.

BattleTech will be stomping onto PC some time in April as the first salvo in the Year of BattleTech.

2018 will be the year of the BATTLETECH relaunch

2018 will see a return, in force, for the venerable BattleTech science fiction franchise. For over thirty years the franchise has fuelled a tabletop wargame, a roleplaying game, dozens of novels and over twenty video games. After a lean few years the franchise returns in force next year. Polygon has a massive, in-depth guide to the franchise, its history and its future going forwards.

The new BattleTech renaissance will be spearheaded by three games. Piranha Games has spent five years developing MechWarrior Online and has turned it from a game with a mixed reception to a much more successful title with a widespread, international following (with now a startling 700 battle mechs available to play). They are now developing MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, a new single-player game in which you play a 'mech pilot and lead a group of mercenaries across the galaxy, looking to find riches during the chaos of the Third Succession Wars. Set in the period 3015-3049 AD, the game will have a large sandbox campaign which unfolds differently depending on your game choices. The game promises unmatched replayability.

The game is the latest in a series of games consisting of MechWarrior (1989), MechWarrior 2 (1995), MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries (1996), MechWarrior 3 (1999), MechWarrior 4: Vengeance (2000) and MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries (2002). There is also a related strategy series, consisting of MechCommander (1998) and MechCommander 2 (2001). These games are very well-regarded, not just by franchise fans but gamers in general, for their emphasis on strategy and tactics as well as combat. The resurrection of the franchise with modern graphics has generally been welcomed, but it remains to be seen if Piranha can match the quality of the games that came before.

The next game in development is BattleTech. This is a turn-based strategy game under development by Harebrained Schemes and personally overseen by Jordan Weisman, the original co-creator of the BattleTech and MechWarrior franchises. This game will mix turn-based combat with a freeform campaign in which you guide your team of mechs from mission to mission in a starship with its own crew of individual characters. Weisman and his team promise a mixture of giant 'mech action and Firefly-like interrelationships on the ship.

Of course, there is also where the game originally began: miniatures. Catalyst Game Labs is now in charge of the BattleTech wargame and is developing new rules, expansions and miniatures, as well the related A Time of War roleplaying game. In 2018 they aim to make getting into the BattleTech tabletop game easier than ever with the release of new starter sets complete with miniatures, terrain and counters.

The game also has an enormous amount of fiction and lore backing it up. More than one hundred novels tell the story of the future of the human race, from a post-Cold War alternate history of the 21st Century through to a period of instability at the start of the 32nd Century.

2018 looks set to be a huge year for the setting. It'll be interesting to see how successful these companies are in bringing in a new generation of fans to the venerable big 'mech franchise.

First BATTLETECH gameplay footage

Harebrained Schemes have released the first gameplay video for BattleTech, their turn-based strategy game set in the BattleTech/MechWarrior universe. Jordan Weisman, who created the original tabletop game, is leading this project (he can be seen in the video).

For game in the pre-alpha stage, this is looking pretty good. The game is due for release some time in 2017 and the company recently released some information on when and where the game will be set, for those interested in the backstory and lore.

BATTLETECH smashes Kickstarter targets, will be released in 2017

Harebrained Schemes have succeeded in their latest Kickstarter campaign, this one designed to bring a new video game based on the BattleTech franchise to life. 41,733 backers pledged $2,785,537, far exceeding its original target of $250,000.

Based on the BattleTech miniatures wargame, the new video game sees hulking battlemechs fighting it out for supremacy across a turn-based battlefield. The game will see players controlling multiple mechs and managing heat, ammunition and damage as they try to overcome the enemy. The game will feature a single-player campaign with a reactive, freeform story unfolding over many battles. The game will also feature a comprehensive multiplayer mode.

BattleTech will be released on Windows, Mac and Linux in 2017.

BATTLETECH Kickstarter launched

Harebrained Schemes has launched its Kickstarter campaign for BattleTech, a new, turn-based tactical wargame set in the universe of the miniature game BattleTech and its roleplaying-based spin-off, MechWarrior.

The new game will be helmed by Jordan Weisman, the co-creator of the entire BattleTech/MechWarrior franchise, along with many of the same team who worked on the recent Shadowrun RPGs.

As of this time of writing, less than 24 hours after the launch of the campaign and with 34 days to go, the game has already made $600,000 and seems likely to hit the $1 million target, at which point the game will get a fully-fleshed out singleplayer campaign in addition to a skirmish mode.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong

2056. A youngster from Seattle, raised in tough conditions and left behind when their foster-father, Raymond Black, moved to Hong Kong, is summoned to a meeting with him. Also attending is Duncan Wu, another orphan raised by Black. The meeting turns out to be a trap set by corporate police. Soon both of Black's wards are on the run. Their only hope is a disreputable triad boss, who agrees to help them on the condition they accept a new life as shadowrunners in their employ.

Hong Kong is the third game in the Shadowrun Returns series of games, following on from Dead Man's Switch (2013) and Dragonfall (2014). Like those games, Hong Kong is an isometric roleplaying game where you create and develop your own character, interact with others and carry out missions using tactics of stealth, frontal assault or hacking (or some combination of the three).

If you've played the previous two games things will be familiar, bordering on the identical. The game is bigger than the original game and perhaps matches Dragonfall in size. The story, which is more personal and complex to the player, is actually stronger, as is the writing. The rich background of the pen-and-paper Shadowrun roleplaying game is called upon to provide depth and backstory to the setting, which works pretty well.

Combat is still turn-based, tactical and fun. The other key mechanic, decking or hacking, is much-improved. The original decking mechanic was a bit dull but it's now been replaced by a new version in which you have to stealthily move through the Matrix to find the information you are after. Once you reach your objective you have to use a key-memorisation routine to actually get the info. Failure at any point triggers a response from the automated security systems. It's an entertaining way of handling hacking, certainly a big improvement on the previous two titles, but it also feels a little more cumbersome and time-consuming, especially when most objectives can be achieved through combat or dialogue instead.

The characters are highly memorable this time time around, with your band of adventurers consisting of Duncan Wu, a tough fighter with a chip on his shoulder; a genius dwarf hacker named Is0bel and an orc mage named Gobbet. Optional additions to the party include Racter, a fanatical transhumanist rigger living in the cargo hold of a grounded boat (which serves as your party's HQ). It's the strongest cast assembled so far for a Shadowrun game, with the characters each having fully-fleshed-out backstories and motivations for doing what they do.

The main mission hub is a floating criminal town, which is great. Running across the huge map between your base and the subway does get a little old, however.

For the unimaginative, Hong Kong does pretty much the same stuff as Dragonfall and the original Dead Man's Switch, so if you really liked those games, get this one. It isn't perfect, however.


First up, the game felt a little easier that is predecessors on the equivalent difficulty level. It definitely required less constant updating of equipment or armour than the previous games. I only upgraded my gun to a new one once, and I updated my armour only twice in over 15 hours of gaming. Despite this, enemies remained relatively unchallenging throughout and even the end-of-game boss (who you cheekily have to kill three times to make sure they're actually dead) was a relative pushover. If you want more of a challenge, Hong Kong may not really provide it.

Secondly, the developers went back to Kickstarter to ask for more money to make a bigger and deeper game. They definitely made a bigger game, with some truly huge environments and more NPCs in each area. However, there isn't a lot more actual content. The game takes roughly the same amount of time to complete as Dragonfall, there aren't much more quests and the number of talkable-to NPCs and interactive elements in each location remains fairly low. A struggle of the series has been that it's fairly sparse in terms of things to actually do in the game apart from to follow the main story. There isn't a lot going on in terms of optional missions or little moments of side-flavour. What is there is excellent, well-written and atmospheric, but it's having to support quite a lot of time when you're doing nothing more than running across the huge hub area for the fiftieth time.

If Hong Kong (****) is pushing the limits of the game engine and design to breaking point, at least it remains mostly entertaining when doing so. It's a well-designed, well-written and fun game which is certainly well worth playing and doesn't outstay its welcome. However, I hope it is the last game in the series on this engine and future Shadowrun games will be a little more ambitious and rich in content. It struck me while playing Satellite Reign (which came out a week after Hong Kong) that if the designers of the two games could join forces and combine the gorgeous Satellite Reign engine with the combat and writing of the Shadowrun team, they could produce something really impressive. Hong Kong is available now on PC from Steam.

New BATTLETECH game announced

Harebrained Schemes have announced the development of a new BattleTech game, which they will be funding through Kickstarter this autumn.

Harebrained founder Jordan Weisman is noted for creating the Shadowrun roleplaying game in 1989 and being behind the recent Shadowrun Returns franchise of Kickstarted RPGs (consisting of Dead Man's Switch, Dragonfall and the imminent Hong Kong, slated for release on 28 August). However, he is arguably even more famous for co-creating the BattleTech miniatures game in 1984 and its spin-off RPG line, MechWarrior. The MechWarrior RPG spawned a successful four-title videogame series in the 1990s and early 2000s, with MechWarrior 2 and 4 being particularly acclaimed.

The new BattleTech game takes things back to the beginning. This will be a strategy game featuring turn-based combat as well as RPG elements and the ability to create new mech designs. The game will also be open-ended and will draw inspiration from Mercenaries, the name of the expansions to both MechWarrior 2 and 4. This sub-series features player choice and a branching storyline with multiple endings, as opposed to the more linear storytelling of other games in the series.

BattleTech still has a large, dedicated fan following and following the impressive success of Shadowrun Returns, I suspect this will be one of those Kickstarters which is funded almost instantly.

Shadowrun Returns: Dragonfall

Forty years ago the great dragon Feuerschwinge went on a rampage across Germany, destroying vast areas of land. It was finally killed by the Luftwaffe, working in concert with a dragon-slaying scientist named Vauclair. This event, the Dragonfall, was soon overshadowed as other, even greater disasters threatened humanity.

A band of shadowrunners in Berlin uncover evidence that Feuerschwinge is not dead, and may soon return to destroy the Flux-State. They also discover that something is wrong in the Matrix, with deckers dying whilst trying to access information related to the dragon. The shadowrunners may soon hold the fate of Berlin, and possibly the wider world, in their hands.

Dragonfall is the first expansion to last year's Shadowrun Returns. Calling it an expansion is to actually do it a disservice: it is a larger, more satisfying and better-written game than its forebear. It clocks in at between 15 and 20 hours in length (compared to the original's 10) and addresses most of the first game's technical issues as well as its creative ones.

Once again you start off creating a new character from scratch (you can't port over your character from Dead Man's Switch, the original base campaign) and receiving a message from an old friend. This time you team up with an established band of runners trying to carry out a heist at a remote mansion. Needless to say, things go wrong and soon your band of heroes or, more accurately, morally ambiguous protagonists are laying low at their safehouse. After initial resistance, you manage to take command of the band and have to find out what happened at the mansion, who wants you dead and what the hell is going on. Unlike the original game, you have a full band of runners who accompanies you through the game (though you can still recruit more skilled - but expensive - runners for hire if you really want). This immediately leads to much richer characterisation and character interplay, with you able to check in with your team between missions, learn more about them and help them to deal with their own problems.

Early in the game you are floundering in the dark, so have to take on side-missions to raise funds to hire a data expert to work out what's happening. This gives early missions a sense of freeform structure, with you both heading off to other parts of the city on missions and helping out in the deprived neighbourhood where your base is located. The neighbourhood is home to all manner of individuals and taking the time to get to know them early on pays off later, when you can ask them for aid or get additional missions from them. The game is still linear, but it hides its linearity much better than the original campaign, with you able to tackle missions in a variety of different orders. Completing runs gives you karma points which you can use to upgrade your main character's skills. Again, success is not dependent on combat and, indeed, resolving situations without resorting to guns can give you more karma points then wading in and shooting everything in sight (though this also works).

Dragonfall is a more confident, assured game than its forebear. The writing is stronger, the dialogue smarter and funnier ("Can you sing?" "I was the frontman for a punk band. No, I cannot sing,") and the characters are much more complex, messier people. The game acknowledges that people who'd rather hang out in grotty bars and risk getting killed for a living are likely to have severe issues, and exploits that to provide some rich (and occasionally disturbing) backgrounds. The game offers up a lot of moral quandaries but these are often even nastier and more difficult to deal with than the previous game's, with plenty of moments when it feels you are trying to make the least-worst choice rather than a 'good' one.

The better writing (and the original was pretty good) accompanies some very wise gameplay improvements from the first game. You can now save anywhere, with both quicksave and regular saving options on top of the autosaves. You can even save mid-combat. This eases frustration in the later, epic-length battle sequences. These improvements are also retrofitted into the original Dead Man's Switch campaign. The game also takes you out of turn-based mode once all the enemies in battle are dead rather than forcing you to laboriously move around locations character-by-character, which gets old quickly. The decking sequences in cyberspace are also more optional than necessary, making tasks easier rather than them being mandatory.

On the weaker side of things, the game is still focused on combat. There's more ways to avoid it than before and more satisfying conversation options, but almost all of your skills are based on their value in combat. Given that the pen-and-paper Shadowrun RPG is based more around small-scale heists, trying to extract information without the enemy ever being aware of your presence and fighting in the shadows, Dragonfall's emphasis on combat and massive explosions over stealth is a bit odd. There's also the fact that, for the second game in a row, you are trying to save the world, which is much higher stakes than normal for the setting. At least this time around the plot ties in with a core part of Shadowrun lore and is set up from the off, rather than Dead Man Switch's abrupt and unconvincing stakes escalation in its closing hour or so.

Dragonfall (****½) is not flawless, but it builds on the impressive foundations of Shadowrun Returns to deliver a well-written, compelling adventure. Much-improved gameplay systems make the game far more rewarding, with some very memorable characters and very satisfying combat. It is available now via Steam.