Harebrained Schemes pulled off something special when it released BattleTech back in 2018. It was a tight, satisfying squad tactics game with giant robot tanks, delivering customization, book-balancing mercenary management and lots of laser-induced explosions. Our own Chris Thursten scored it a very respectable 85, and things only improved with patches and DLC. That alone should be plenty of reason to pick it up and play it.
But some fans (myself included) felt it was a little limiting. While it captured a lot of what made the original ‘80s tabletop game great, it felt a bit restricted in scale. Why am I only deploying four mechs, and with arbitrary tonnage limits when I’m not having to track armor levels on paper? Why do light mechs fade into uselessness? Why does it feel like I’m running a Pokémon team instead of a private army?
