To help with creating and maintaining (or obfuscating) sight lines, Urban Warfare also brings one of the most requested additions since the base game launch - ECM and Active Probe. There is now a reason to spread out a bit. This has implications on armor to be sure, but you can bet it can be a problem for stability. Stray shots, that laser that went wide, or the half a dozen missiles that missed their mark can now end up deep in the chest of the mech standing next to you. It’s very easy to get into a ‘turtling’ mentality, keeping your lance grouped tightly as you inch your way towards enemy positions. Speaking of collateral damage, BattleTech gets a lot harder when the missiles and lasers don’t just evaporate when they miss their intended target.
It does cause a few more hitches as the dense landscape pushes the Unity engine hard, but it’s completely worth it. Every little building seems to be swollen with little bits and baubles, all of which crash into a heap when the collateral damage begins. After a quick laugh at Bluth Corporation (somebody is a fan of Arrested Development) buildings, I couldn’t help but notice the detail: the cars littering the streets, the lights, and the future-perfect glow of soft neon everywhere. It also makes the Highlander more useful, and this helped me break the lock of constantly fielding nothing but the heaviest bits of steel I could pack on my dropship.īeyond the tactical bits, you have to admit that the cities are dense. Most importantly, it makes jump jets useful again - something the game desperately needed. Targeting buildings and clearing the field may use a bit of ammunition, but clearing cover forces the enemy to displace, leaving them open to crossfire. My first few missions I spent time ducking in and out of alleyways with my Steiner Scout Lance and a side of King Crab, but soon I figured out that “through” is just as viable as “around”. This makes missile lock that much more important, but that’s not the only game in town. Watch as a shot intended for an enemy mech ended up lighting him up as the coolant tank nearby exploded:Īs you can see,creating line of sight for ballistic and laser weapons becomes problematic when facing narrow corridors, and those same sight lines are quickly lost with very little movement. The streets have bridges, short buildings, and skyscrapers creating a very dense criss-cross of chokepoints and ambush opportunities. This proved to be a fatal mistake when his perch exploded into a fireball under its feet thanks to stray, indirect fire from his compatriot’s missiles. As you will see in the video below, the enemy thought it might be a good idea to use their jump jets to perch up on top of a shorter building. Rather than relying on simple height differences in open space for advantage as we have up to this point, now your squad will have to contend with skyscrapers and chokepoints.īuildings create an awesome new landscape for chaos and destruction, but let me assure you that they are more hazardous to your health than you might think. You don’t have to restart the campaign to experience the new biome - it occurs naturally as you tackle encounters on urban planets (as the name might suggest). The first thing to know is that the Urban Warfare expansion folds in to the game at any point. I’m very glad to get to power up my mechs once again and check out the Urban Warfare expansion. It was easily the most exciting part of earlier mech battle games, and an aspect I desperately was hoping to see integrated into Harebrained’s BattleTech. Several of those videos featured mechs in combat in wide open spaces, but it’s the tight corridors of the city landscape that makes for claustrophobic and dangerous battle. If you’ve been playing BattleTech as long as I have then you probably remember the grainy but amazing intro videos for the MechWarrior and MechCommander series.
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