With an overly complex skill tree and an unintuitive menu system, MechWarrior Online isn't exactly friendly to newcomers.

Being behind the wheel of a lumbering robot makes it impossible to get yourself out of trouble once you get into it, making cooperation with teammates a crucial part of victory. Unlike most first-person shooters out there, where players can correct their mistakes with lightning quick reflexes, your life in MechWarrior often hangs with decisions made 30 seconds ago.

While that comes with its own share of problems like a long grind and microtransactions, MechWarrior Online excels at capturing the slow pace of combat that made the series so revered to begin with. The free-to-play shooter might not have a singleplayer campaign, but it captures the tense thrill of attrition-based warfare in its excellent competitive matches.Įach game is a 12v12 slugfest that ends with players earning currency and experience, and customizing their rides in between rounds. It's developed by Piranha Games, the same studio that released MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries this year. But make no mistake, MechWarrior Online is a great mech game in its own right. MechWarrior Online inherited the august legacy of classic titles like MechWarrior 2 and MechWarrior 4: Mercenaries-both games we’d love to include in this list if they weren’t so damn hard to get running on modern hardware. Release date: 2015 | Developer: Piranha Games | Steam

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