After 15 years of drought, the BattleTech floodgates opened again and mechs poured forth late last decade. Now a new flood of classic 1980s mechs is coming to PC with MechWarrior 5: Clans, putting us back into the cooling suit of a genetically engineered warrior ready to conquer the worlds of humankind from the cockpit of a 25-100 ton war machine. This is not just a minor expansion, but a standalone game. Clans is a confident leap over 2019's MechWarrior 5, with a much deeper story and new-to-the-series emphasis on narrative cinematics while losing none of its focus on the simulator-like experience of piloting a mech knock-down, drag-out armored brawls.
The subtitle is a lot more meaningful than it might sound. In the world of MechWarrior, the Clans are militaristic invaders from outside of known civilization with advanced technology and a strict, almost alien caste system. They use genetic engineering to create warriors rather than have them born as natural "freebirths"—a category of person their ruling military caste generally looks down on. They see themselves as not just a superior society, but the true inheritors of human civilization and rightful posessors of Earth (and every other human world).
