BATTLETECH — Steam key

BATTLETECH: turn-based war of giant mechs

BATTLETECH is a turn-based tactics game by Harebrained Schemes, published by Paradox Interactive and released on April 24, 2018. It's set in the fractured Inner Sphere of the 31st century, where mercenary outfits make a living in battles between many-ton war machines called BattleMechs. You run a small mercenary company: take contracts, drop a lance of four mechs onto the field, position them around cover and high ground, target specific sections of an enemy's chassis and decide what to risk for the payout. What you buy here is a Steam activation key — the base game, an expanded edition or one of the add-ons, your pick.

What makes BATTLETECH's combat tick

Combat is turn-based and rests on three things: positioning, heat and where you land your shots. Mechs overheat when they alpha-strike with energy weapons, so you constantly weigh a heavy volley against the risk of a shutdown. Every machine has separate armor sections — legs, arms, torsos, head — and a smart player doesn't just chip away at a health bar, they blow off a weapon arm or cripple a leg to knock the enemy down. MechWarrior pilots level up across four specializations, take injuries and can die, while the company itself needs repairs, money and spare parts between missions. It's a slow, calculated game where one bad placement costs you an expensive mech.

Campaign, mercenaries and management

Beyond the story campaign about restoring the Aurigan throne, BATTLETECH has a career mode — an open-ended mercenary life where you choose where to fly and whom to fight for. Between battles you live aboard the dropship Argo: repair mechs in the bay, hire and heal pilots, upgrade gear and watch your budget. A wrecked mech takes time to fix, an injured pilot sits in medbay, and contracts won't wait — so resource management matters as much as the fights themselves.

Editions and what's inside

There are several BATTLETECH options in the catalog, and it's important not to confuse an edition with an add-on:

• BATTLETECH (base) — the full base game with the campaign and mercenary mode. This is where you start.
• Digital Deluxe Edition — the same base game plus digital extras: an art book, the official soundtrack, a 4K wallpaper set and a Paradox forum icon and avatar. The story expansions are NOT included here.
• Flashpoint — the first major expansion: branching mini-stories called Flashpoints, three new mechs (Hatchetman, Crab, Cyclops) and a tropical biome.
• Urban Warfare — city fights among destructible skyscrapers, new ECM and Active Probe mechanics, the new Raven and Javelin mechs and fresh Flashpoints.
• Heavy Metal — eight new mechs, eight weapon systems and a story Flashpoint against fighters from Wolf's Dragoons.
• Shadow Hawk Pack — a cosmetic skin for the Shadow Hawk mech, formerly a pre-order bonus.

The add-ons need the base game

This is the key point: Flashpoint, Urban Warfare, Heavy Metal and the Shadow Hawk Pack are DLC, not standalone games. They hook into a base BATTLETECH that's already installed and won't launch without it. If you don't own the base yet, start with it or the Digital Deluxe Edition and stack expansions on top. The expansions rolled out over time — Flashpoint in late 2018, Urban Warfare in summer 2019, Heavy Metal in late 2019 — so all of this content has long been out and playable.

How to activate the key

You receive a Steam code. Open Steam, go to the “Games” menu, choose “Activate a Product on Steam”, enter the key — and the game, edition or add-on lands in your library. A DLC attaches itself to the base game; it doesn't need a separate launch. Downloads and updates run through Steam as usual.

Key region

The keys are intended for CIS-region accounts. If your Steam account region isn't CIS, activation may not go through, so it's worth checking before you buy. There are no “47 regional versions” here — it's simply a regional key that activates on CIS accounts.

Similar games

If mech tactics clicked for you, take a look at MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries — a first-person cockpit action game set in the same BattleTech universe. Fans of turn-based tactical battles will feel at home in XCOM 2, with its similar logic of cover and risk. And for grand strategy from the same publisher, Paradox, drop into Stellaris.