MechWarrior 5: Clansmight share a number designation with its predecessor, but make no mistake: this is a full-fledged standalone entry that easily could have been calledMechWarrior 6. WhileMechWarrior 5: Mercenariesleaned into a procedurally generated sandbox to provide players with a more open-ended mercenary company management loop,Clansis a narrative-heavy, linear campaign full of thoughtful writing, bespoke level design, and cinematic storytelling. Although Clans is a linear campaign, that doesn’t mean it robs players ofMechWarrior’s signature out-of-combat features. Par for the course, there’s an ever deepening customization system, cashflow management, and a research system that progresses alongside the campaign.
The real focus ofMechWarrior 5: Clans, however, is the narrative.Clansfollows some freshly minted cadets from the deeply militaristic Clan Smoke Jaguar, a warrior society that selectively breeds for ideal MechWarrior pilots. Clan Smoke Jaguar has been biding its time in exile, hoping to someday return to the Inner Sphere and reclaim their lost home, and this squad of cadets is placed at the forefront of the fateful invasion.MechWarrior 5: Clansexplores the varying and changing attitudes of these cadets as they experience the conflict first hand, and it’s by far theMechWarriorseries' strongest storytelling effort.
Game Rant sat down with Piranha Games CEO Russ Bullock andMechWarrior 5: Clansnarrative directory Chris Lowrey to talk all about how the team brought this unprecedented franchise entry to life. They spoke about the importance of the narrative,MechWarrior 5: Clans' all-new features, and Piranha Games' relationship with the MechWarrior modding community.This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Focusing on Clan Smoke Jaguar and the Narrative of MechWarrior 5: Clans
Q:MechWarrior 5: Clansis focused on Clan Smoke Jaguar. Can you talk about who Smoke Jaguar is in this universe and their significance in the lore?
Bullock:Well, Chris is the major lore expert, so I’ll let him answer this primarily. But from my perspective, as the CEO, we knew we wanted to make a Clans game. It’s interesting how long it took to get back to being a pure Clans game, especially when you think about the fact thatMechWarrior 2was the last time that you could play as the Clans–MechWarrior 2in 1995 remains far and away the biggest and most successfulMechWarriorgame of all time. You’d thinkeveryMechWarriorgameafter that would have tried to recapture that magic. I can’t speak forMech 3orMech 4, which we weren’t involved in, but when we did get involved, long story short, there were reasons we went PvP first, and then we did single-player withMechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. In a lot of ways, it felt like setting the stage, getting things ready. We finally felt like the stage was set, we had the tools, the technology, and the skill set to finally go back there. For me, it was an obvious choice to go with Smoke Jaguar.
Here are my reasons, and Chris’s might be similar or different, but inMechWarrior 2, there were a whole bunch of Clans—Chris will know exactly how many, but there were tons, maybe a dozen or more. But there are really four major ones: Wolf, Jade Falcon, Ghost Bear, and Smoke Jaguar. From a lore perspective, Smoke Jaguar has the most interesting bullet points. They were involved in the most significant aspects of the invasion, but we’ve never played them. They’ve always just been a background element, with other factions interacting with their major events. So, to me, it made sense—no one’s played as Smoke Jaguar, and they’ve never been the main focus in a game. That alone made it an obvious choice, and it just so happens they’re involved in the most interesting parts of the timeline. It was an easy choice from my perspective. I know a lot of fans prefer Wolf, and they view Smoke Jaguar as more of the bad guys, but that just makes it more interesting to me.
Lowrey:You got most of the points, but I’d say, rewinding a little further back,MechWarrior 5: Mercenarieswas really a reintroduction ofBattleTechand theMechWarrioruniverse to a new generation of fans who haven’t been around for the past 20 years.MechWarrior 5: Mercenariesput you front and center during the Succession Wars era ofBattleTech, and both the vanilla release and DLCs kept you grounded there. So, the next logical step after the Succession Wars is the Invasion era.
There’s always been strong interest in the Clans, and from producingMercenaries, we knew there was a big contingent of fans wanting to see the Clans return. When it came to making the Clans game, especially since we wanted to tell the story from the Clans’ perspective, we had to go with Smoke Jaguar. We didn’t have to, per se, but as Russ said, so much of the narrative around why the clans are invading and the big moments of the invasion center around Clan Smoke Jaguar. Even if we had gone with Wolf or Jade Falcon, we’d still have to talk about Smoke Jaguar constantly because so many pivotal points in the invasion happen from their side.
For us, it was a natural choice. If we look at this as a continuation of the story fromMechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, we’re stepping into the next big story point, and we’re telling it from the perspective of the faction that makes the most sense—Smoke Jaguar.
Q: You mentioned that Smoke Jaguar is perceived by some fans as being the bad guys. How did you approach Smoke Jaguar in those terms? Are they “bad guys”?
Lowrey:The thing to remember aboutBattleTechandMechWarrioris that all the factions exist in a shade-of-gray universe. There are different shades of terrible in every faction. The Draconis Combine, the primary antagonists inMechWarrior 5: Clans, have a reputation for their own brutality, which you saw a little of inMercenaries. They have a history of systematically wiping out an entire planet. That’s much worse than anything Smoke Jaguar did in the fiction.
But we’re working within an establishedIP with 30 years of lore,most of which portrays the Clans as an antagonistic force. Naturally, they get labeled as villains because the context of most stories—whether through the Stackpole books or other media—puts the perspective on those opposing the Clans. So, they’re often made to look bad. But the reality is more complicated. The Clans aren’t outright antagonists. They have a purpose, which you probably noticed in your playthrough: the Clans, in general, have a sort of manifest destiny. They’re trying to return home and reclaim something they lost when their civilization was forced into exile.
For them, it’s not a villain arc. It’s a triumphant return after hundreds of years in exile, reclaiming what was lost from the despots who caused the perpetual wars of the Succession Wars that players encountered inMechWarrior 5. From the Jaguars’ perspective, they never saw themselves as villains. We’re making sure we ground the story in that perspective as we move forward.
Bullock:To bring it down to the personal level: while the story focuses on Jaguar as a whole, we’re really telling the story of just a few individuals. We’re talking about half a dozen people, plus some leaders. A small group within what might be tens of thousands in the Smoke Jaguar force—Chris would know the exact numbers—but it’s a few people in a large army. Just like in real life, when you look at past world wars or whatever, individual soldiers and officers didn’t think they were the bad guys. They were doing what they were told and what they thought was right.
That’s the biggest takeaway about the Clans. As you go deeper—it sounds like you’ve just finished the Huntress arc and reached Santander, so you’re yet to experience the full development of these characters as they move along, receive orders, go on missions, and form their own opinions about it all. You’re going to see what those star mates themselves think of the things they’re being asked to do. Different members of the star will feel differently about the war. And that’s really the story—how the star views the war that’s happening.
Lowrey:I think it’s important to remember that these aren’t century-old veterans fully indoctrinated into a cause, like you’d see in something likethe newSpace Marinegame. These are effectively fresh cadets—teenagers just out of basic training, stepping into the wider world for the first time. While they’ve been enlisted in the army since birth because of their upbringing, this is really about them coming to grips with how the world works.
They’ve been in their own little bubble in the sense that they’ve lived in this isolated society that cut itself off from the rest of humanity, but also they themselves are very young and don’t know much about the wider universe outside their bubble, and you see them come to grips with that as you go through the campaign.
Q: Smoke Jaguar has a distinct warrior culture and other characteristics like not using contractions in their speech. How did you approach the portrayal of Smoke Jaguar’s unique culture?
Lowrey:Having over 40 years of sourcebooks and material to pull from in this IP means that finding context to support everything isn’t too hard. But, as you’ve probably seen since you’ve looked into the wikis, it’s a deep rabbit hole with over 40 years of lore. The challenge is more about taking that lore, which has mostly existed on the page, and bringing it into a modern product. There have only been small snippets and caricatures in other media, from earlierMechWarriorgamesto the TV show.
This is our first real opportunity to dive deep into not just Smoke Jaguar, but the Clans as a whole, within a product like this. As Russ mentioned, the last time you really got to play as Clan warriors was 29 years ago withGhost Bear’s Legacy. It’s been three decades since you could see things from their perspective. And in that time, technology and the way we tell stories in video games have changed significantly. This is our first opportunity to bring the Clan experience into a more modern gaming experience.
Q: Although allMechWarriorgames have some story, Clans is especially narrative-driven. Did you face unique challenges developing Clans as opposed toMechWarrior 5: Mercenariesbecause of this?
Bullock:Yeah, I think we discovered that it impacted everything. It’s not just about inserting cinematics between levels and otherwise keeping things the same. Every single level in theClansgame is a story-driven experience in itself. Between the mission dialogue, what’s happening in the mission, and how the enemies engage you, everything is narrative-driven. The missions are completely tied to the story.
From the cinematics to non-interactive scenes within the levels, even the front-end metagame experience is all feeding into that same narrative-driven approach. It touches every aspect of the game, which is quite different fromMercenaries.Mercenarieshad a main storyline, of course, but at its core, it was aprocedurally generated sandboxsimulation. Even where there was story, you could still see the procedural generation at its base. WithClans, there’s no sense of that—it’s a completely bespoke experience in every way.
Q: Do you feel that that narrative focus gave you new opportunities for scenarios that maybe weren’t feasible with procedural generation?
Bullock:Oh, yeah, completely. I mean, every encounter is essentially unique.Clansis a fairly long game too—probably upwards of a 30-hour experience. You could spend close to 20 hours just on these bespoke missions. You could take any one of them out of the entire product and say there’s nothing like that inMercenaries. Every single mission is a completely different experience from something you’d get inMercenaries.
So, to answer your question, yes, every single encounter is different fromMercenaries. What happens is we can do anything we want with the encounters. We can bring the mechs in from the cliff face, from the water, or however we want. In contrast,Mercenarieshad to live within a rule set because the levels were generated, so you had very little opportunity for custom spawning.
Q: TheMechWarriorfranchise is iconic. What do you feel is most important to include in aMechWarriorgame? Are there less obvious ideas that you try to include in eachMechWarriorgame?
Bullock:I think there are a lot of elements, but we tried to capture this in all our games. In Clans, it comes down to the fact that there’s a pilot inside the mech. That’s what makesMechWarriorunique—it’snot justTransformersor whatever. It’s about the people. The machines are impressive, but the mech warriors themselves are crucial.
I think that aspect got a bit lost in pastMechWarriorgames, where you’d almost forget there were pilots in the machines due to the lack of storyline. In this game, you’re constantly hearing from the pilots, and when you go to the front end, it’s about the customization aspect. The actual management aspect is what sets it apart from other giant mech games.
The mech combat is super fun and awesome, but when you’re out of combat, you have this deep world of managing your equipment and your pilot. I think we’ve gone further than anyMechWarriorgame has in the past by letting you, as theMechWarriorpilot, manage your own skills, the mechs, and even the customization and modification of those mechs. That’s what makes aMechWarriorgame special, aside from the combat.
Q: Can you talk about the progression systems in Clans? There’s an unexpectedly deep economy and research system for a linear, mission-based campaign. How did you approach balancing this against the pace of the storyline?
Bullock:I think there was some worry about balance. AMechWarriorgame isn’t reallyaMechWarriorgameunless you have those elements, but at the same time, we’re trying to create a game that brings in a whole new era ofMechWarriorfans and creates newMechWarriorenthusiasts. We have to be careful about how deep things go, or at least provide players with an easier path while they learn that stuff.
I thinkClansdid a pretty good job of that because, when it comes to your mech bay and mech repairs, you can pretty much let things roll along automatically. Now that you’ve gotten to the next act, you’ll see as you play that the clan itself will take care of you and handle all the repairs of your mechs. You can just roll along from mission to mission. But when you’re ready or want to, you can go in and customize those mechs and dive deeper.
The same goes for the science lab and chassis upgrades. Those elements are important for the meta-game power. Throughout the first couple of acts, players can dip their toes in and gradually get deeper into the mechanics.
Lowrey:In a lot of ways, we’re trying to find a middle ground between the hyper-complexity you’ll see inMechWarrior Online, where you have full customization of everything. We do attempt to drip-feed things at a steady pace. Rather than giving you analysis paralysis by opening your mech lab and seeing endless menus, you’re initially locked into the prime versions of every mech. This gives you a bounding box on how far you’re able to customize at first.
As you gain more experience with the mechs, you unlock more variants and additional pieces to customize the OmniPods and swap out parts. You have the ability to dive deeper into the customization aspect. Additionally, you’re able to unlock alternative types of the primary configurations without even touching the mech lab—just by unlocking the pods and setting the default values.
We’ve tried to make this system approachable. Even if you don’t want to engage with the mech lab function, you still have access to all those alternative variants to find something enjoyable. If you’re inclined to delve deeper into the customization system, the depth is there for you to go into if you want to.
Q: Clan mechs have been present inMechWarrior Onlinefor a while. Did that factor into how you developedMechWarrior 5: Clans? CanMechWarrior Onlineplayers expect some familiar elements, or will things behave a bit differently?
Bullock:I think it’s fair to say that a significant amount, if not almost all, theheavy lifting was done byMechWarrior Online. I mean,MechWarrior Onlineis a game that’s been around now for 11 years or something like that. And when we createdMechWarrior Online, it had been a decade since the lastMechWarriorgame had come out. It was a huge decade-plus gap when we shippedMechWarrior Online.
So really,MechWarrior Onlinewas a complete reinvention ofMechWarriorfor gaming because the last time theMechWarriorgame had come out, around 2000,MechWarrior 4technology and game engines and stuff had advanced so far. In fact, you might not be aware of this, but when you look at the pen-and-paper-based game, like Catalyst and whatnot, when we were makingMechWarrior Online, we had to completely redesign every single mech in the entire universe. When it comes to graphics, like the line art and the concept art of what the mechs looked like, the classic stuff was traditional and awesome, but it was extremely dated and wasn’t really applicable to a new modern game—modern at the time, even though we’re going back to 2011. We used CryEngine, and not to go down a bigMechWarrior Onlinerabbit hole, butMechWarrior Onlinewas a significant effort to essentially redefine whatMechWarrioris going to be in modern games.
So it did a ton of work over the 10 years, including bringing clan mechs in and their weaponry and their technology and all the things that come with aMechWarriorwith a clan mech. SoMechWarrior 5: MercenariesandMechWarrior 5: Clanshave both benefited significantly from all that work done byMechWarrior Online.
MechWarrior 5: Clans' New Features and Tech Change the Game
Q: Clans features an all-new overhead tactical view. What led the team to implement this feature and how do you feel it switches upMechWarriorgameplay?
Bullock:I think that was kind of a natural evolution because all theMechWarriorgames always had what we’d call a “battle grid.” Really, it was about going into big map mode because you had the little mini-map down there in past games, kind of in your HUD, but it gave you a very small view. So, once in a while, you’d press “B” for battle grid, and you’d go to the big map, which showed you where you were and all the other dots representing your friendlies and enemies. You got a sense of the greater map size. That’s how it was forMechWarrior OnlineandMercenaries.
But it would incrementally grow, so now in the battle grid, there was always a notion that you should be able to call in and click where you want your airstrikes to go. If I’m not mistaken, there are a few mods for Mercenaries that do some stuff like that. It was always obvious that we wanted the battle grid to advance or grow.
However, I think we were all maybe a little surprised by how it evolved inClans. The way we were doing the cameras withMechWarrior 5, it just became a very natural process for it to become like an actual camera. The only direction I gave the team was, “This is absolutely awesome, but we’re not making a really bad RTS; we’re making aMechWarriorgame.” So we had to find the right balance and not go too far with that.
It was more about commanding your guys within a sort of 1000-meter radius and giving certain commands, not trying to push it to the point where you just sit back and playa simple RTS game. But I think it’s a great addition; it definitely creates interesting gameplay.
For example, if your mech is pretty damaged, but you have two or three teammates that are really healthy, you can pull up the battle grid and say, “Hey, you three, click. You go in first and start tanking, and I’ll come up behind because I’ve taken the most damage.”
That adds a layer of strategy you couldn’t do before unless you had line of sight to command your guys to go in. If it’s uphill or something, you wouldn’t be able to do that. So, it creates completely new ways of balancing out your game plan.
Lowrey:And I think that adds a level of control to single-player experiences. Much likeMercenaries,MechWarrior 5: Clansis fundamentally afive-player co-op game. In any co-op experience, even with recent titles, there are AI characters that fill in when you’re playing solo. If you bring in your friends, there’s always this challenge of how to get the AI to really do what you want them to do, especially in a game likeMechWarrior, where you have degrading mechs and an entire meta-game around managing your team.
When all that is built into the core game experience, you want to exert that level of control in your single-player gameplay. This gives players the opportunity to gain that degree of control, which was sometimes a struggle inMercenaries. It allows players to effectively manage their pieces on the board and do what they want with their strategies.
Q: Earlier you mentioned modding and howMercenarieshas a mod that introduces a similar tactical scheme. Do you look to the modding community when working on new features? What is your relationship with theMechWarriormodding community?
Bullock:First and foremost, from my perspective, I’m not particularly aware of all the mods out there. Sometimes I’ll learn after the fact that a mod exists that does something similar, and I think, “Oh, that’s cool,” because the mod scene is ever-changing. It might sound like we don’t have a close relationship with the mod community, but I would say we really do. While I’m not keeping up to date with all the mods being developed, we’ve made significant efforts to ensure that the mod community has the tools they need.
Every time we release a DLC, we go through and add more functionality to the mod community that wasn’t there before, so they can do bigger and better things with their mods. I love the mods; I think they add a lot of longevity toMercenaries. The original release was in December 2019, coming up on five years, and while it’s only been on Steam since April 2021, that’s still over three years ago. Year over yearMechWarrior 5: Mercenariessales have remained consistent and strong. I think a lot of that has to do with ongoing DLC support as well asmod support.
I don’t know; maybe Chris can answer that differently, but I haven’t looked at the mods and thought, “Hey, there’s something forClans.” The feature set forClansreally defines itself based on the narrative story and the things we need to make a great game. In the end, there’s a bit of crossover with some new features the mod community has been working on forMercenaries, but that’s how I see it.
Lowrey:As a designer, the discussions on the inside are always interesting to parse through because, with a game that has a legacy likeMechWarrior, there’s a lot of support for making things very complex—like spreadsheets and fine-tuning to the nth degree. What we’ve seen through 10 years of running the game and observing the types of players who come and go is that, while all of that is well and good, it can create an impenetrable wall for players. They open a menu and see text everywhere that has no relevance to them.
WithMechWarrior 5: Mercenariesthere was a conscious effort to make the franchise more approachable for people who may not be familiar with it or who haven’t experienced this game before. The goal was to bring them onboard. Mods often push you towards the older games, where you end up doing more design work than actually playing the game, which some people enjoy. However, for us, we aim to make this IP more accessible to newer audiences while still retaining a lot of the nostalgia for older fans.
We’re trying to find a middle ground between creating something that works within the modern gaming environment and appealing to those older fans. What I think the mod community really does is offer predictable feedback from a design perspective. Many things they gravitate toward are based on what happened in previous games. This serves as a good barometer to judge whether we’ve lost too much from past iterations or if we need to reinforce certain elements.
However, we can’t ignore that wall of text that remains insurmountable for many players. InClans, for example, when you get a new mech, you don’t have all those options available; you start with a prime variant until you gain experience. As you become more experienced with the mech, you unlock more Lego pieces, adding complexity that you might see in mods right from the start inMercenaries.
We want to ensure the systems we build in this game are deep enough for older fans to enjoy while also being approachable enough that new fans aren’t completely overwhelmed the moment they open the mech lab.
Q: With the narrative focus and cinematic style ofClans, I imagine there are some new technologies and capabilities that we didn’t have inMercenaries. Do you anticipate that we might see more interesting mods in that area with players leveraging these features to create their own stories or campaigns?
Bullock:Yeah, I sure hope so. I think one of the complaints from theMercenariesmodding community would be that, while I’ve been really impressed with many mods inMercenaries, a lot of players, including myself, have been a bit disappointed by the lack of single-player campaign-type mods. The main reason is that you may create them inMercenaries, but due to the procedurally generated nature of the game, it’s challenging to make more storytelling and narrative-based content. We do it in our DLCs, but you have to finesse the procedural elements to make it work.
So, I expect that one of the most significant types of mods we’ll see withClanswill be narrative single-player modules or experiences. It seems very logical to me, and I think it should lead to very different types of mods withClans.
Lowrey:To echo what Russ said, inMercs, there were a fewmods that added single-player story contentor bespoke missions with some text written into them. But, truth be told, the modding tools allow you to create an entire campaign, similar to the DLC campaigns we’ve released. All the tools to make those narrative-driven campaigns are available, yet players have chosen not to pursue that kind of content in favor of more crunchy, mech lab-focused elements or mech content generation.
That’s just how it is; we can’t really control what types of mods players will gravitate toward. But we definitely hope that players will use the tools to create new narrative-focused experiences. They still have those tools inMercsif they choose to use them. However, as Russ mentioned, it’s probably going to be on a small scale compared to those who modify a game menu or add new equipment to the game.
Q: With the move to Unreal 5 withClans, are there any new capabilities with the engine that really stood out to you? What does the upgrade do forMechWarrior 5: Clans?
Bullock:Oh, man. Well, there’s so much new stuff. I mean, couldClansexist without it? Sure, of course. We could be on Unreal 4, and the game would just be visually less impressive, I suppose. That’s what Unreal 5 brings, I think, across the board.
When it comes to the various features like Lumen, Nanite, and Chaos, the destructibles inClanshave been upgraded because of that. Everything just looks better and has more finesse and fidelity to it. So, I thinkbeing on Unreal 5 brings a lot to the game, but it could exist without it. I just think it wouldn’t be as shiny.
Simply put, there’s not really any one thing thatClanswouldn’t have been possible without Unreal 5. It could have existed; it just would have looked mostly different visually, with some gameplay impact from Chaos and the upgrades we have that affect the gameplay of our environments. But I think it helps bring the world to life even more, adding another layer of beauty and complexity.
Q: Do you have any last thoughts you’d like to share?
Bullock:I’m looking forward to you finishing it up! You’ve got to finish it! So, my big message to the player base is this: I’m one of those guys who goes to watch a movie. I’m not a movie buff by any stretch; nowadays, I hardly watch any movies. But when a really good one comes out—like, say,Dune—I’m a bigDunefan. So, I’m the kind of guy who’s going togo watchDunePart Two, and I don’t want anyone to talk during it. Sometimes you’re watching a movie with your family, and I’m the one who hits pause if someone wants to ask a question. I’ll say, “Are you done? Are you done? Okay, let’s watch it!”
When it comes toMechWarrior 5: Clans, it’s a five-player co-op game, which I think is awesome. But I also hope that players will first play it single-player. Play through it on your own, take it in, absorb the story. Because that’s really where the grit is—the quantum leap forward forMechWarrior. There’s never been aMechWarriorgame in the history of the franchise that had narration and storytelling like this. I mean, in the past, there might have been a cinematic at the beginning or something like that.
So I really hope players will watch it like they would a movie—take in thisMechWarriorandBattleTechnarrative. Once they’ve finished the game and really absorbed it, then they can get together with their friends and play co-op. That would be awesome.
Lowrey:Just that we hope that the game is well received. Like I said before, we really had an eye towards making bothMechWarrior 5: MercsandMechWarrior 5: Clansnow as being onboarding experiences into this universe. WithMercs, it was about introducing players to the Inner Sphere and the Succession Wars. WithClans, it’s really trying to onboard players as to who the clans are, what they’re all about, and why they’re doing what they’re doing.
So we really hope that players get a kick out of that experience and help raise the standards ofMechWarriorback to what it was in the ’90s when it wasthe premier mech game. The market is much more crowded now, and it’s been a while sinceBattleTechandMechWarriorhave been in the spotlight, but we truly believe we’ve done our best to bring that 40 years of history to the forefront for players to enjoy. We really hope they love it!
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