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MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries — climb into the cockpit of a war machine
MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries is a simulation of piloting towering BattleMechs in the BattleTech universe, set in the 31st century. Developer Piranha Games puts you in a mercenary's cockpit: you're not a scripted hero but the commander of a for-profit outfit that makes its living from war. Take a contract, drop your lance onto a planet, tear through the objectives — then come back to patch dented armor and count your C-Bills. Here the weight of the hardware is something you feel: mechs accelerate, lean, overheat and lose limbs under accurate fire.
What the game is and who you play
The story follows a young pilot whose outfit is wiped out and whose father is killed — and it's on you to rebuild a mercenary company from scratch. You travel between Inner Sphere systems aboard your mobile base, take jobs from rival factions, navigate the politics of the Great Houses and build a reputation. The campaign can be played solo with an AI lance or in co-op for up to four players, each piloting their own mech. This isn't an arcade shooter: hits are tracked per armor section, weapon heat must be vented, and a heavy assault mech feels nothing like a nimble light scout.
The MechLab and customization — the heart of it
The real joy of MechWarrior 5 is the hangar. In the MechLab you strip a mech down to its slots: fit autocannons, lasers, missile racks and PPCs, balance tonnage, armor, heat dissipation and ammo. The same chassis can be built as a long-range sniper, a missile boat or an aggressive brawler. As you progress you uncover rare hero mechs with unique loadouts, level up your pilots and expand your bay. It's this build-tinkering that keeps players going for hundreds of hours.
What's included in this gift
You're buying a Steam gift of the base version of MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries. That's the full game: the main campaign, the contract loop, the MechLab and the entire base roster of mechs and weapons. The story expansions — Heroes of the Inner Sphere, Legend of the Kestrel Lancers, Call to Arms, Rise of Rasalhague and later DLC from Piranha Games — are sold separately and are not part of this gift. The base game is enough to play through the core campaign and build your own mercenary unit; the expansions layer new story arcs, biomes and mechs on top.
How the gift is delivered
We deliver the game not as a key but as a Steam gift via a bot. We need two things from you: your Steam friend invite link (grab it from your profile → “Add Friend”) and your Steam account region. The bot then adds itself to your friends, sends the gift, and after delivery removes itself automatically — you don't need to accept anything, and Steam Guard is not required. The whole process usually takes a couple of minutes from checkout, but we don't promise a strict timing — occasionally it needs a short wait.
Region and ownership — two key conditions
Steam will only accept the gift under two conditions. First: your account region must match the gift region — so enter your real Steam region in the order. Second: MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries must NOT already be in this account's library — Steam won't let you accept a gift for a game you already own, and that's the single most common reason a gift fails. If something doesn't line up on region or ownership, it's best to sort it out before paying.
Performance and platform
The game runs on PC via Steam (Windows). It's a demanding sim with detailed mechs and destructible environments, so medium-to-high settings are more comfortable with a discrete GPU and enough memory. If you've played the turn-based BattleTech by Harebrained Schemes, MechWarrior 5 is the same universe but first-person and real-time, leaning hard into the feel of weight and machinery.
Who it's for
This is a game for people who love big machines, deep customization and the meditative loop of contract → battle → repair → upgrade. If you enjoy mech action like Armored Core VI but want more simulation heft, tactics and squad management, MechWarrior 5 delivers exactly that. BattleTech fans get dozens of familiar chassis, factions and references, and newcomers get an approachable way into one of the most atmospheric mech sims on PC.
🎮 Other games in the series
A few links that might help: MechWarrior 5: Clans.