New MechWarrior 5 Teaser Video Showcases Gorgeous Biomes

courtesy of Piranha Games on YouTube

courtesy of Piranha Games on YouTube

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is looking like it’ll be even prettier than MechWarrior Online and will easily hang with the current generation of games.

MechWarrior has always been a series on the forefront of technology. Back in the day, MechWarrior 2 may not have had textures, but it made those colored polygons look just like those towering Clan ‘Mechs we’d only previously seen in sourecbooks. At least, in our minds anyway.

MechWarrior 2: Mercenaries finally brought us the most basic of textures and made the surrounding environment look just a teensy bit more realistic. Not that we really cared, mind you, but it was nice to see the developers flex their graphical muscle.

courtesy of Piranha Games on YouTube

courtesy of Piranha Games on YouTube

MechWarrior 3 really brought environments alive, finally showing grassland and desert and rocky plateaus--basically anything that was mostly flat and didn’t have a lot of foliage. Roads, rivers, and waterways broke up the monotony with a bit of color, but most of the textures were spent on making the ‘Mechs themselves look prettier than the last generation.

Skip ahead to MechWarrior Online (I loved MechWarrior 4, but it was graphically mundane compared to games of its era) and we finally have something that brings atmosphere effects, lighting effects, and even fog. Snow whirls around your cockpit, smoke billows from shattered ‘Mechs, and the night sky lights up with laser and PPC fire.

courtesy of Piranha Games on YouTube

courtesy of Piranha Games on YouTube

Now we have MechWarrior 5. Last year at Mech_Con it was certainly a very pretty game, but the environments seemed rather dull. Sure, it was neat that you could smash through trees while walking through a forest, but it wasn’t anything we hadn’t seen before, and the forest looked kinda dull.

Well, not anymore. Now it looks positively alive.

But it’s not just the forest that’s vibrant. You can pick out individuals blades of grass on the plains. There’s actual lightning bolts while you duel beneath a thunderstorm. There’s red dust storms on a Mars-like world.

I didn’t see any tumbleweeds, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see them added to the desert biome before the game sees release.

Check out the new teaser vid and be prepared to be amazed. This game is gonna be purty.

MechWarrior 5 Mercenaries - Biome Update Teaser
Watch this video on YouTube.

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About Sean

Hooked on BattleTech at an early age, Sean honestly can't remember whether it was the cartoon, the serial novels or the short-lived TCG that did him in. Whatever it was, his passion for giant shooty robots never died, so now he writes about the latest and greatest in 'Mech related news.

6 thoughts on “New MechWarrior 5 Teaser Video Showcases Gorgeous Biomes

  1. Patrick M. Rich

    I’m not convinced yet. Anyone can make a pretty game, but this trailer doesn’t show any real gameplay. Does that destructible terrain cause damage to mechs caught under it for example? How about DFAs? The ability to knockdown an enemy mech? Good enemy AI?

    After all the controversies that plagued MW:O I feel these are not unreasonable questions to ask. PGI’s ability to create a pretty game was never in question, but their ability to make a good game is.

    Reply
    1. yo

      Agreed. While it is interesting to note the advancements in technology for displaying MW2, MW3, and MW4 what is not mentioned is the actual mechanics and features of those games that made them great. Games like MW2 even had the amazing ‘interactive’ UI that was found in other titles from those days like X-Wing or TIE Fighter.

      The graphics look pretty/sharp, but that’s it – but the way it looks seems bland. When you compare it to the original MW5 Concept from 2009, you could tell someone(s) namely Jordan Weisman was looking to innovate the franchise, making that MW5 seem very visceral and modern. This PGI MW5 basically looks like MWO in the Unreal engine with what appears to be similar gameplay mechanics, which stripped out a lot of things from the “sim” aspect of previous games. Autocannons should fire like giant machine guns, but instead look like they are lobbing single artillery shells at a time.

      Take for example the cockpit view, it largely looks the same with no interaction within the cockpit itself. It still one view looking out, but we don’t know if there are features like from MW2 that had a Rear-Camera view. I’ve always imagined newer Mech Warrior games could really use today’s technology to its fullest advantage for things like that, not only having full VR (360 degree condensed to 160 degree Neuro Helmet View), but with the difference shown with rare older Mechs having optional see-through cockpit panels/bubble canopies should the Neuro Helmet fail or the player simply not wanting to use it, while others have actual displays that make up the cockpit view instead of looking through transparent material – imagine getting hit in the cockpit and the damage actually being functional within the cockpit where your displays start flickering, etc. They could also make the buttons actually do something if you click on things like powering up, switching weapons, etc. like flight sims do today (as an option rather).

      Other examples would be Jump Jets. MW2 had fully directional ones in trying to mimic BattleTech where Mechs propelled very quickly in chosen directions. MW3 and MW4 didn’t do so hot in that area and regressed, BUT they did other things that were interested like PIP Views, actually functioning Targeting Computers (MW3), Free-Aim with nearly 90 Degree Arc firing, etc. Plus excellent voice-acting, varied mission design, the works. The other thing that annoys me is that Mech Warrior is stuck in the idea of pin-point FPS accuracy, where the original MW5 concept seemed to toy with the idea with slight randomness if your Mech was under a lot of stress.

      Reply
  2. Concerned Fan

    Honestly, it doesn’t look that good. And the gameplay doesn’t look like anything we’ve seen before.

    Reply
  3. Philips Faust

    It’s basically a slightly enhanced MWO but now with campaign and vehicle targets. As long as it’s not over $40 on release I’ll probably buy it. But thats cause I’m a whore for battletech games

    Reply
  4. A tasty locust

    Were those catapult K-types showing up in the trailer? I’m probably mistaken but the configuration reminded me of the Katapults from the fan packs of Mechwarrior 4 Mercenaries.

    Reply

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