I waited years to play MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries, and it was over in a flash. It was released late last year, and while I enjoyed it a lot, it didn't leave me with the impression that is typical of these open-world sandbox games. The procedurally generated missions were a bit too boring, and I would have liked more options to deeply customize my mechs. But now that MW5 supports mods, someone is trying to solve these two problems. [The name is "MW5 Mercs Reloaded". While it is still in beta and far from complete, the number of major changes to the base game is remarkable.

The biggest tweak is a fully unlocked mech lab that offers a huge amount of new ways to tweak and adjust your mech. Beyond simply tweaking weapon systems, heat sinks, and armor, Reloaded adds new customization features such as engine upgrades, five new types of armor, gyros, engine cooling, sensors, arm and leg enhancement slots, and deeper structural changes. To complement these new options, the mech has been overhauled to make more hardpoints (places to attach rocket launchers and other modules) available. For mech theorists, Reloaded is a dream come true.

The mod also brings significant improvements to combat. Most importantly, over 40 custom assault mechs have been added. However, since it is true to the timeline, units from many years ago, when that model mech was first built, will not participate in combat. However, the balance of combat has also been adjusted to focus on actual mech vs. mech battles against larger, more durable enemies, rather than pesky units like enemy tanks and air vehicles.

There are also some great new features that make combat a bit more nuanced. Climate and time of day affect how fast mechs cool down after weapon system use, and Heat Vision has been overhauled to show an accurate thermal profile of enemy mechs. There are also a number of smaller changes, such as combining Reloaded with another mod to make mechs noticeably limp when they lose a leg.

It's a big list, so it's worth going to Nexus Mods and perusing all the changes yourself to see if they are worth trying. As the creator 'navida1' explains, this mod is not compatible with other mods.

MechWarrior 5 is available on the Epic Games Store. For more information, check out our review and try MW5 Mercs Reloaded on Nexus Mods.