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).

WITCHER, EXPANSE, PUNISHER and SHADOW & BONE vets team up to develop a WORLD OF DARKNESS TV franchise

An intriguing coalition of writer-producers has formed with a view to bringing White Wolf's venerable tabletop roleplaying universe, The World of Darkness, to television and film.

Eric Heisserer (the showrunner of Netflix's Shadow and Bone), his wife Christine Boylan (The Punisher) and production company Hivemind (The Witcher, The Expanse) have partnered with Paradox Interactive, White Wolf's parent company, to develop a number of TV and film proposals based on the roleplaying game. The World of Darkness posits a world where various supernatural creatures exist in secret alongside humanity, with the various sub-games taking place in different locations and time periods. 

The best known of the World of Darkness games is Vampire: The Masquerade. Other titles in the line include Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Mage: The Ascension, Wraith: The Oblivion, Changeling: The Dreaming, Hunter: The Reckoning, Demon: The Fallen, Kindred of the East and Vampire: The Dark Ages. The games were launched in 1991 with Mark Rein-Hagen as the principle creator of the setting.

The franchise has so far not been adapted for television or film, but there have been several successful and critically-acclaimed video games in the setting, most notably Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (2004). A sequel to that game is currently in development at Paradox.

The new team are planning to develop a number of different TV and film projects. It must be assumed that Vampire: The Masquerade would be the most logical jumping-off point, being the original and most popular incarnation of the franchise. In Vampire, the modern-day world is being secretly fought over by several millennia-old vampire clans who operate in the shadows, with strict codes of conduct ensuring the continuance of "the Masquerade," the illusion that vampires are myths and not real. This setting is popular because of the high degree of personality and character given to the vampire clans, allowing for numerous twists on the familiar vampire tropes.

Paradox confirm they are working on VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE - BLOODLINES 2

Paradox Entertainment have announced that they are working on a sequel to Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, one of the most critically-acclaimed CRPGs of all time.

Originally released in 2004 as the second game (after Half-Life 2) to use Valve's Source Engine, Bloodlines was a somewhat open-ended RPG which cast you as a vampire in the setting of White Wolf's phenomenally popular pen-and-paper roleplaying game. You could choose from one of several vampire clans, including the insane Malkavians who would get an entirely different dialogue tree for the entire game from the other clans. The game was hugely acclaimed on release for the quality of its writing, dialogue, story and characterisation, but criticised for a large number of bugs. Subsequent patches and fan mods have fixed most of these issues and in some cases restored cut content.

Bloodlines' developer, Troika Games, later collapsed and most of the staff who worked on the game moved over to Obsidian Entertainment. Leonard Boyarsky, who worked on Bloodlines, is now working on The Outer Worlds alongside former Troika colleague (and Fallout co-creator) Tim Cain. However, Bloodlines' other creative lead, Brian Mitsoda, is working on the new game alongside Cara Ellison and Chris Avellone.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 is currently planned for release in March 2020.

WEREWOLF: THE APOCALYPSE game in development

A couple of years back Paradox Entertainment bought White Wolf, the company behind the World of Darkness, a horror setting for a family of roleplaying games, the best-known of which is Vampire: The Masquerade. It's now been announced that a new computer roleplaying game in the setting is in development, based on Vampire's sister game Werewolf: The Apocalypse.

The new game, curiously, is not being released by Paradox. It's instead being developed by Cyanide, the French studio behind Blood Bowl and the so-so 2012 Game of Thrones RPG, and being released by Focus Interactive. This makes me wonder if the development deal pre-dates White Wolf's acquisition, as there doesn't seem much logic to them doing this and not Paradox themselves.

Hopefully the new game will be good, although Cyanide's track record has been spotty. What gamers have been hoping for is a new Vampire game, especially given Paradox's alliance with Obsidian, where some of the developers of the well-received 2004 RPG Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines are now working. Time will tell whether that intriguing possibility comes to light.

Tyranny

The world of Terratus has fallen under the heel of the Overlord Kyros. For four centuries the armies of Kyros have spread across the known world, conquering territory after territory, until only the southern landmass know as the Tiers remains contested. Two of Kyros's armies, the Disfavoured under the command of Graven Ashe, Archon of War, and the Scarlet Chrous led by the insane mage Voices of Nerat, Archon of Secrets, are tasked with crushing the latest rebellion in the Tiers and securing the region. But their mutual rivalry and hatred is threatening to spill into open civil war. A Fatebinder is sent to adjudicate the dispute and help bring an end to the dissent against Kyros's Peace.

Tyranny is the latest computer roleplaying game from Obsidian. Both under their current name and their former incarnation as Black Isle, they have created many of the greatest CRPGs ever made: Icewind Dale, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1 and 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights II and the recent South Park: Stick of Truth and Pillars of Eternity. Tyranny uses the same engine as Pillars of Eternity and players of the latter game will immediately find themselves at home. However, Obsidian have updated and refined their engine and interface, making Tyranny in many ways the superior game.

The central conceit of Tyranny is that the bad guys have won. The Dark Lord has conquered the world, the great heroes have died and all that is left is the mopping-up. This is when problems arise, as with no real enemies left to fight the forces of evil are showing signs of turning on one another. It's your job - as the Fatebinder - to keep this from happening. Well, if you choose. Tyranny has a lot of focus on choice and consequence, and if you wish you can plunge both factions into war for your own advantage, side with the native rebels against Kyros's will, or try to conquer the region yourself. The game has a lot of choice, with different consequences for those choices. This gives the game a lot of replayability.

The game plays like Pillars of Eternity, Baldur's Gate or many of the other great isometric RPGs. Controlling things from above, you assemble a party of four (from a total of seven possible characters) and have to complete a lot of quests. Some of these quests are quite linear, but many are lengthy and open-ended, with lots of different options on how to proceed. Depending on your decisions, entire areas of the world map may be closed off, unvisited until your next play-through, and different characters will live and die by your word. There is a lot of combat in Tyranny, which is undertaken in a similar, real-time-with-pause format to Pillars of Eternity and the old Infinity Engine games.Combat is more enjoyable than in Pillars, with meatier and more interesting builds and options available. There is also an impressively sophisticated spell-creation system, as well as the ability to develop several different strongholds, allowing you to build your own power base.

The game is imaginative and well-written. Although traditional in structure, the world is more primitive than many fantasy ones, being on the cusp of the bronze and iron ages rather than the standard cod-medieval level of technology. The game is deeply concerned with the nature of evil and it's surprising how quickly players who usually choose the "Good" or "Paragon" options in games will start justifying execution, massacres and mass starvation as long as it's for "the greater good". The insidious nature of evil and corruption is something that Tyranny handles extremely well, with a lot of nuance.

The writing is of a high standard and characterisation is particularly strong: the once-honourable, now-ruthless general Graven Ashe, the crazed Voices of Nerat and your companions characters are all strongly delineated characters with interesting backstories and their own, sometimes contradictory motivations. This is easily the best cast of characters assembled for a CRPG in many years.

There are some negatives. The version of the Unity Engine that Obsidian is using doesn't allow for very large maps, so both outdoor areas and dungeons are made up of interlocking, relatively small areas, far smaller than even the eighteen-year-old Infinity Engine is capable of. This feels slightly restrictive and unnecessary. There's also quite lengthy load times which, given the relative simplicity of the game's design and graphics, feels totally unwarranted. Some people may also find the game's 20-hour playing time a bit on the short side, especially compared to Pillars of Eternity's 40+. However, Pillars outstayed its welcome for far too long and Tyranny has enormous amounts of replayability, which favours a shorter running time. Finally, the game ends rather abruptly and almost anti-climatically, with a rather obvious sequel hook built into the finale. That's not so much of a problem, since I'd welcome spending more time in this world, but players looking for a more contained and definitively-resolved storyline won't really find that here.

Tyranny (****½) is a well-written, excellently-characterised and highly enjoyable roleplaying game. Its graphics are not cutting edge, but often wonderfully-designed, and the soundtrack is excellent. Most importantly, Tyranny genuinely manages to tell a morally-conflicted story and provides multiple interesting ways of resolving each problem. It's one of the better CRPGs of recent years and is well worth a look, despite a modest length and an open ending. The game is available now on PC.

Obsidian Entertainment are working on three games

Obsidian Entertainment have confirmed that they currently have three titles at varying stages of development.

A screenshot from the forthcoming Tyranny.

First up is Tyranny, a roleplaying game that they are developing for Paradox, due for release later this year. This game is set in a world where the bad guys have already won and the dark lord is in control of the land.

Second is Pillars of Eternity II. The original Pillars of Eternity (which I really need to get back to) was a big success and made Obsidian a solid amount of profit. A sequel is a no-brainer. However, this is in a rather early stage of development and Obsidian are still considering going back to Kickstarter for the sequel.

Most intriguingly, they have also got a third game under development in secret. This third game is, specifically, being worked on by Tim Cain, the creator of Fallout and former head honcho at Troika, Troika being the company that worked on Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines using the then-cutting edge 3D Source Engine. The new game is using the now-cutting edge 3D Unreal 4 Engine, and Obsidian's new partners-in-crime Paradox recently gained the Vampire licence when they, er, bought the entire company lock, stock and barrel. Fans are already running around screaming in hope that Obsidian and Paradox may be collaborating on a new Vampire game with some of the same team who made Bloodlines working on it. Paradox also recently bought the specific Bloodlines trademarks and rights, which would allow them to make a direct sequel or remake the first game. There is also the possibility that this new game might be related to Obsidian's recent partnership with Paizo Publishing to make video games based on the Pathfinder RPG system.

Obsidian announce a new RPG about the nature of evil

Obsidian Entertainment have announced a new computer roleplaying game, called Tyranny.

The new game will be published by Paradox and is being developed alongside them. This is in contrast to Obsidian's previous game, Pillars of Eternity, which was crowdfunded on Kickstarter.

The new RPG uses the Pillars of Eternity engine (hopefully refined so it's not quite so much of a system hog) but is set in a whole new world. The premise is that a massive battle between good and evil has been fought, but evil has triumphed and the Dark Lord Kyros rules the world. Your character is a Fatebinder in the service of Kyros, but one who has free will of his or her own. The game will apparently explore, in true Obsidian style, the consequences of moral choices and violence. However, this will (apparently) be Obsidian's first big RPG made without any input from the mighty Chris Avellone, who has decamped to Larian Studios to work on Divinity: Original Sin II.

Interestingly, the game has a 2016 release date, meaning we should see it relatively soon. Which is bad news for those of us who are still one-third of the way through Pillars of Eternity with other games taking priority (ahem).

Paradox buys White Wolf and VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE from CCP

Paradox Entertainment has purchased the White Wolf roleplaying company and all of its licences from CCP. These licences included the Exalted and Trinity roleplaying games, but, far more importantly, the family of games known as World of Darkness, most notably Vampire: The Masquerade.

White Wolf was bought by Icelandic firm CCP - the creators of EVE Online - in 2006 with the intention of releasing an online roleplaying game based on the World of Darkness properties. However, the project sunk into development hell before CCP canned it early last year, preferring to refocus their attention on EVE Online.

Paradox's purchase of White Wolf came out of the blue, but is highly encouraging. Paradox is a Swedish developer best-known for the Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron strategy games, but it has recently made a move into publishing third-party games, including the hugely successful Cities: Skylines and Obsidian's Pillars of Eternity. Their collaboration with Obsidian is particularly important with regards to the White Wolf news, because several of Obsidian's senior developers and programmers used to work at Troika Games, who developed the critically-acclaimed Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines in 2004, still rated as one of the best CRPGs ever made.

In a statement, Paradox confirmed that they will be pursuing new video games based on the White Wolf properties in the near future, which is sure to delight fans of what has traditionally been the second-most-popular roleplaying game of all time.