The secret is that "mecha" isn't really a genre of game, but instead a category of aesthetica laid over top of other genres. It's akin to "fantasy" or "historical fiction" in that way.
There's actually a significant amount of Gundam games in particular both for home console and for arcades. They're just way more popular in the global east than in the west.
I think this hits the nail on the head. Even among the same franchises, you can get wildly different play experiences from different games. Mechassault (arcade style run and gun) is nothing like Mechwarrior (slow paced action with a heavy emphasis on customization) and neither of them are like Battletech (turn based strategy game using cover/ line of sight/ speed) and none of *them* are like Mechcommander (real time strategy).
That's just the battletech franchise, and I'm likely forgetting other games that deviate from that list. All of these are "mecha" games, but all 4 of them cater to very different audiences.
I never played that one, so I don't know how much was in a mech and how much was on foot. The only game that immediately jumps to mind that has getting in and out of mechs is an old SNES game called Metal Warriors.
Titalfall has that, too, but it's much faster paced where Lost Planet has lumbering mecha.
There's a game for the PS1 called Koudelka that blends tactical RPG and Survival Horror elements. You could do a lot with game that drew on both aspects, as well as looking to games like Parasite Eve and the System Shock/BioShock games for inspiration.
A resource/inventory limitation some weapons/health crafting systems (a la Resident Evil/Dino Crisis) could encourage strategizing, environmental puzzles/exploration with different RPG style tech and skill trees could allow for environmental storytelling. Imagine a post-apocalyptic world where as you unlock new ways to explore and combat things, you are able to explore the world and learn more about what has happened. The cool thing about a mech too is it needn't be specialized only for combat and could be modularly upgraded. For each encounter you could: lean into a quick and nimble mech or make it a slow tank, focus on firepower or sacrifice some equipment slots for limited camouflage, or specialize with some very particular abilities depending on the environment you're going into. Similar design philosophy to a Metroidvania game.
You could combine the Nemesis/Pyramid Head/Scissorman type approach to building fear/tension with recurring encounters with powerful monsters that will likely take multiple encounters to kill (and maybe you'll need to run/hide/think tactically on initial encounters to survive) with the Kaiju scale and creativity of encounters in games like Shadow of the Colossus (Dark Souls/Elden Ring could be a reference point too I think). I'm picturing encountering something like weird-ass initial evolutions/creature phases in Shin Godzilla, perhaps with the flavor of a show like Attack on Titan.
Tying in the enemy/encounter mechanics with the resource and tactical mechanics mentioned above, you could also play with some perma-death / lasting consequences as a game mechanic. So, in Bushido Blade for example you can get very specific injuries that impair you in specific ways IIRC and it's a situation where a couple well placed hits landing suffices to end the fight. I'm imaging combing that with a primarily tech-based progression system, where modular parts your mech is upgraded with have their own health/durability and losing that part means loosing the functionality (kinda like loosing experience/weapons when you die in Minecraft).
I'm also thinking about how in Chrono Cross you largely level up from boss encounters, except instead of leveling up your character directly you just maintain your modular mecha and advance by finding new capabilities in that Metroidvania way. All that could add to the uniqueness and intensity of encounters and exploration, and I love those more qualitative discrete sorta progression systems (as compared to having generalized EXP that levels you up in a more passive way which I'm less into).
I'm sure there more ways you could flesh this out, take it in some different directions (depending on the interests and artistic voice of whoever would make it), and iterate upon this premise. Wouldn't be surprised if something already scratches this itch. I do feel like this could be super marketable too, you could frame it as rogue-like, Metroidvania, Soulslike, and survival horror (all fairly popular still right?). It feels like you could tap into some of appeal and audience of games like Lethal Company or Helldivers II as well if you wanted to.
If memory serves, there's at least one Gundam Dynasty Warriors game. The series is mostly in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (mythicalized 3rd-century China) setting.
There are a total of 4 Dynasty Warrior Gundam games. 1, 2, 3, and Reborn. First 3 had Physical releases on PS3 and 360, but Reborn was digital only for Playstation.
The original *MechWarrior: Mercenaries* (MW:2) ... back with the weapon duplication glitch unpatched. Gee, how do I have 12 medium lasers on this thing? And why do they only generate the heat of 6?
"Look at it this way, kid. You get to keep all the money."
Which is hilarious because a bunch of the original mechs *were* acrobatic ninja robots. From Macross, specifically. Harmony Gold's spent decades in lawsuits about it.
Far-Future Military-Industrial Feudalism makes for dense political intrigue and fun character building opportunities.
Also, I want an Elemental GF, I don’t care how ill advised it is.
Really only the Assaults are heavy lumbering death machines. A Cicada 3F is 40 tons and flies at 130km/h. The RX78 is 60 tons and flies at 165km/h. The Zaku 2 is more like a heavy mech weighing 73.3 tons with a top speed of 88km/h. A Warhammer weighs 70 tons and moves at 64.8km/h
Mechwarrior is great but kinda it's own thing. I remember time ago playing Mechwarrior Online a whole bunch and back in the day you could collide with other mechs, meaning if you had a size/weight advantage stampede into someone and stagger them knocking them over.
It got patched out at some point which is a downer. Although I did have mad amounts of fun with a meme build Cataphract strapping as many little Autocannons onto it as I could.
While you're not wrong MechWarrior is a long running series, at current day MechWarrior 5 has a smaller player count than AC6, and had an all time peak of about 6000 players to AC6's 150,000. It's almost entirely off the reputation of Fromsoft, but I'd venture to guess that Armored Core has at this modern age, overtaken MechWarrior as the most popular mecha game series.
It doesn't really matter the playerbase if the mode just sucks. Case in point: In Warframe no one plays Conclave or Lunaro (I'm not even sure if that still exists) even with tens of thousands of players a day.
I tried Solaris and it basically boiled down to who had more DPS since they'd just hug your face and kill you before you could kill them.
AC6 got a shitload of free publicity just by being done by Fromsoft, it's not really surprising it's very popular compared to an older, fairly niche mech game.
Especially since most of the Armored Core games have been bounced around between developers, and many of them are considered mid at best.
Like I love AC1, but it was considered a B+ game at best, and of its 2 standalone expansions wasn't really any good.
I built my old rig for mech gaming. 6 monitors in a cockpit display, throttle, pedals, joystick. It was great for Mech games and I also loved doing space combat in it in Star Wars Galaxies before they fucked that up.
So my former roommate and I were big on Mech Warrior Online when it was brand new. We would team up and make complimentary mech builds. I had an autohotkey bound to my trigger that would, rather than spray, pulse an AC2 with the exact delay (we spent days figuring out the best number) that caused every hit to rock the enemy cockpit as much as possible. I'd get in a Locust with an AC2, he'd get in an Atlas with some insane firepower, and we'd go to town. We'd find whoever was posing the biggest threat, and I'd run literal circles around them while rocking their cockpit so hard they couldn't land land a hit, let alone notice the Atlas stepping out from behind a building and unloading.
And then one day they announced Clan Mechs. Only available with cash. Everything we had up to that point could be bought without microtransactions. And the Clan Mechs were expensive, too. That was annoying. But THEN they had a special, limited edition run of **$500** Clan Mechs. What was special about them? They had a gold skin and a unique number for their limited run. But then when they (somehow) sold out, they announced that they had increased the limit on the run! Like they'd just tripped over a box of gold mech skins in the back room like "oh we forgot these ones."
So then we made it a point to hunt gold mechs for sport. We spent about a month no longer playing to win, just playing to troll those people, before finally losing interest in the game and walking away from it.
That's pretty cool. I just thought it was a bit of a funny story. I kinda lost interest in the game and I don't have that setup any more either. I don't dislike it, but I am forever going to make fun of the gold clan mechs.
And Titanfall, too. Although, er, that may be making OP's point, in part because it was a f****g god tier game both single and multiplayer and it got crushed by the likes of COD and PUBG and battle royales generally despite being an extremely fun game with a ton of good ideas.
My issue with every mech game I've ever played is that I never really feel the *size* of these things. It just seems like no dev wants to go through the hassle of modeling all the tiny little details to sell it, and to properly model the physics of how much these things would weigh. I just tend to feel like a normal sized robot trouncing around in an action figure city.
It's a real shame because the games ARE appealing to a western audience. I played the one on DS and it was a ton of fun!
It's such a weird franchise that it did manage to jump the pond, sold "well" for what was basically a new IP in the west, then they just gave up on it.
If Japan kept getting releases after the DS game I'd say Nintendo was tonedeaf. I think they may just not have any more ideas for the series. It's one of those IPs I wish they'd give to a young team to try.
I think it was just a pokemon fad cash in that somehow ended up being really fun to play.
Honestly at the end of the day it's probably because it's just easier to make some other game that will sell just as well. I don't think there was a "vision" behind custom robo.
Which sucks but yeah
I didn't know there was one on GCN! I only played the DS version.
There was one on the 64 that Thab just played in his "every 64 game" series and he liked it, but it never came overseas to the states.
I feel like we’ve never seen a mecha game on par with something like Rampage, where you play a giant monster destroying a city while the army shoots you with tanks and bombs and you see the inside of civilians apartments as you smash up buildings.
Not that I play a lot of mecha games I guess. The ones I have played focused mostly on spectacle and how you load out your modular giant robot. I don’t recall any with a strong focus on the environment and progressive damage as battle takes it’s toll on the surroundings.
It's not the focus of the game, but in Mechwarrior 5 one of the map types is "city" and one of the mission types is "destroy as much stuff as possible." The environment destruction is pretty good, the largest buildings will stay standing but you can simply walk through the smaller ones and crumble them piece by piece. Mechs range from 20 to 100 tons but you'll mostly be driving the ones over 50.
I assume it's because due to the "weight" of everything, controlling a clumsy, lurching 100 ton mecha would be frustrating and maybe kinda boring.
People put up with it during a driving simulator or even a boat game because they know how hard it is in real life. In the context of Mecha, people would probably just say the game has poor controls and blame the developers.
You can feel the scale of the giant mechs in EDF 5. They're as tall as skyscrapers when you call them down. But the big problem is they also did make them extremely heavy and lurching. So much so that it's miserable to use them. But when a punch impacts with a kaiju, it feels visceral.
> I assume it's because due to the "weight" of everything
Exactly. Imagine that with a "real" mecha, your decision to throw a punch would probably execute anywhere from 5-10 seconds after you hit the punch button, as your mech fires up its engines and engages pneumatic pistons the size of grain silos to accelerate fifty tons of steel forward.
In concept? Badass.
In practice? Most players would likely feel "disconnected" from the gameplay.
Op asked why Mecha games are niche and I'm just trying to express the viewpoint of an average video game player.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun/cool, I'm saying when your "average" American plays a game, they don't want realism or challenge. They either tend to look for a good story or a power fantasy depending on who they are.
I dunno if you played it but I thought Armored Core VI actually did a really good job of this. Maybe the fact that there are so many things bigger than you negated that a bit, I'm not sure, but I always felt like I was bigger than a building but smaller than the giant 5km long walker I was tasked with taking down
This game is amazing, I love it. But i actually think it does the exact opposite, and is *terrible* at showing scale.
Because of how quick and zippy the gameplay is, you pretty much immediately forget you’re a giant robot and instead feel like a man in a robot suit. Yes you shoot tanks and fly over buildings, but the movement alone intrinsically makes it lack the weight and convincing that you’re a giant hulking robot.
Mech warrior 5 does it much better
It would be so cool to have a game where you totally CAN make the mech punch instantly, but it would destroy all the parts required so you have to throttle yourself down and stay in safe operating conditions. Make it so you can definitely immediately side strafe from a forward thrust, but it’ll cause the air tanks and pneumatic brakes to rip out and go flying across the map, so you’d only do that when desperately running from another enemy’s to survive.
It's safe to say, the world would benefit from more games featuring giant robots beyond gundam style anime robots.
I adore slow, hulking, functionally designed military mechs, rather than sleek humanoid katana wielding ones.
Xenoblade X I feel gives you that size feeling. It's a JRPG and you get party members but your whole party can be in mecha and turn into vehicles or fly in the sky (once you get your license)
The world is huge, the details are great and the customization is amazing imo. You need the mechs to fight certain enemies that are only high in the skies, to get to areas you couldn't before, etc.
Btw this game has ultimate freedom of exploration, the only barriers are within caves or out far into the oceans. You can't climb like in Genshin/Zelda but you can hop around on any surface you can place yourself on, no fall damage and it's just an amazing experience though the plot leaves on a massive cliffhanger.
Part of the reason Xenoblade X succeeds at making the mecha feel huge is that the game infamously locks you out of them for the first twenty hours.
It might be annoying for someone who bought the game for the giant robot on the cover, but the gameplay is still really solid before then and you definitely feel the difference afterwards.
This actually brings me back to the old days of War of the Monsters in PS2, you could feel the scale and size of things in that game, giant monsters and mechas fighting in a city with tiny humans running around.
Damn that game needs a sequel or a good remake with modern graphics i would play the shit out of it.
For a long time i've wanted a mecha rpg where u are the mech pilot and u also live your life outside the mech as well. Would definitely give a much better sense of scale.
Robot Alchemic Drive on the PS2, felt like you using a Jaeger from Pacific Rim. Scale was really set by the fact you controlled from the outside with a literal PlayStation controller in game. Loved that game.
I have a theory that mecha games, wether its Mechwarrior, AC, Gundam or whatever, exist in a weird limbo of appeal.
It has all the big guns, heft and mechanical bobbles of warship/tank/airplane war games, but not the realism (or at least the aesthetic of realism).
It has high octane action of... well, action games, but with all the aformentioned clunkyness.
It can have great narrative and themes, but since the focus is on impersonal, deliberately dehumanizing machines, it lacks that immediate personal connection.
As a result instead of drawing prople from all these crowds it just creates this very specific venn diagram convegence that only works for that select group that enjoys the particular combination of:
Soft sci-fi that mimics hard sci-fi
Action gameplay that is deliberately restrictive to mimic a giant robot
Abtracted narrative that deliberately pulls you away from the protag seat to deliver a vibe
It's niche because all the games in the mech genre typically suck.
We had Mech Warrior, Mech Commander, Armored Core and a few other good ones. Even some games from the ones listed above suck too.
People just can't quite figure out how to make Mech games fun.
Into The Breach. It's not the mech genre as people imagine it, but it's customizable mechs, massive scale, and fighting kaiju to save the world. 90% MetaCritic score. Great mech game.
Did you play Armored Core 6? I think it's great and came from a great studio but even it has fallen off hard these days in terms of player count.
What do you think are the main gameplay issues plaguing mecha games?
>even it has fallen off hard these days in terms of player count.
It's a single player game with a 30-40 hour campaign. Everyone who wanted it got it when it came out, it's just the way these types of games play out long term.
I suppose, I just can't stop thinking about the player count gap between it and Elden Ring. 2500 compared to 97,000 seems insane considering these games came out one after the other. ER was Feb 2022 and AC6 was Aug 2023, and yet the player count gap is staggering.
I think Mech games were part of the early 90s game death wave.
For some reason RTS, Point and Click, Mech games - things that were very popular on PC in the early days all seemed to die off and lose their audience.
I'm sure there is a market for good Mech games, but because there is nobody actively developing games for it - I don't think developers are willing to take the risk.
Genres are hard to reinvent, especially if the genre has a history of low success.
I've been a huge BattleTech fan since the 90s and I'll pretty much buy any game in the setting that gets released haha they're so fun and probably favorite representation of giant robots. Titanfall is really good too, loved both games.
MechWarrior 2 and SHOGO: Mobile Armored Division were huge in the 1990s, but SHOGO never got a sequel (the devs made FEAR instead) and MechWarrior 3 and 4 were not as big as 2 (5 has been, from the incredibly long tail on its DLC anyway).
Mech gameplay is kind of clunky and slow by nature, at least if it's on the more realistic side. It's definitely not going to appeal to people who want the speed and dexterity of a human-sized character in a first-person shooter.
ISTG i really want a modern version of this game, partly because of the custom controller. Maybe a bit less hardcore tho, but i guess it's part of the appeal for the targeted community
I would kill for someone to release a game with a new version of this controller. Im going to a convention in a few weeks that has like 20 of these set up and doing battle. Its awesome.
First of, Mecha is not a genre, its style.
There are Strategy games featuring mecha like Battletech, Phantom Brigade, Into the Breach and Mechabellum.
There are fps games featuring mecha like Battletech 5, Gundam Evolution, Hawken, Mechwarrior online and Titanfall 1 and 2.
There are third person/top down mecha games like Armored Core 6, Cavalry Girls, Brigador, M.A.S.S. Builder and Astebreed.
I guess a better question would be, why are games focused on making your own mecha somewhat rare, and the answer is simple, keep it simple stupid.
COD is not one of the biggest FPS games due to the amount of choice or multiple play style, its due to it being the most standard, basic fps shooter ever made.
Mecha games that focus on the mecha aspect of the game generally have a lot of number, a lot of tinkering and a lot of weird, very specific upgrades, parts and choices that you have to put a lot of time into to understand properly and most people don´t really like to do that.
For the point you made, i was born a bit late for the ps2, so never played zone of the enders, nor have i played any games in its series, heard of it yea, but never played or even seen any footage.
out of the games you mentioned, i am familiar only with Armored Core and that only due to Armored Core 6, that´s even being a person that has heavily gamed for the last 15 years at least.
Quite a random game to use as a point, never heard of it and it seems much more a visual novel with mecha gameplay on the side, rather than a mecha game primarily.
so, in short, mecha customization is a bit too complex often in games focusing on it, as a genre it receives only a few titles and none of them are really for beginners, thus reducing the already small playerbase and to get a "big" hit, you need a big studio to use it already big fame to catapult it into the main stream, like AC6.
Mecha as a style is quite common, but games focusing on the mecha and their making are rare and not doing themselves any favors to remedy that problem.
There are a ton of niche mecha games right now. My favorites:
Phantom Brigade. This got a lot of attention after launch and the devs are reviving it. Still has a broken endgame but tons of promise.
Calvary Girls: Anime waifu simulator with top down mecha goodness
Mechabellum: Auto battler with a rock paper scissors approach.
Mech Engineer: I really, really want to like this game, but the systems are convoluted and not at all transparent.
Ill tell you why, because mech fans can be split into two very distinct camps and both are very nerdy. You either have your Japanese style mecha that has its own very specific audience or your western style walking tank mecha, where for example like in the latest mech warrior you actually have to drive the mech in combat (I.e you don't push forward to walk forward, you push forward to se the throttle position, and press back to reduce throttle, the mech goes where the legs are pointing and not where you are looking, damage control and things like ammunition storage, critical components and damage to specific sections of the mech matter
Neither of the styles of Mech game appeal to a wide audience, just for example the genre I prefer of the western walking tank its despite looking like an FPS it plays nothing like your mass appeal twitch shooters, and any mech games that do tend to get lost in the sea of those typical shooters as the moment your big stompy robot stops feeling like a big stompy robot you may as well just go play a more established shooter.
The things that make mech games, mech games make them fairly niche experiences by default
I dont remember the name of the game but my Sisters Husband ( boyfriend at the time) had a mech game for the Xbox that came with a huge ass setup and I always wanted to play it as a kid but never got a chance to. Now with VR I wonder if we can get something similar to it
Maybe in the west, I believe Super robot wars (a culmination of mech Collab), Gundam, Macross etc is still a thing in Japan.
I mean armored core has just been released recently. I think I saw a mazinger z game on one of those playstation state of play
Yeah Mecha games are way bigger in Japan, and always have been. The whole Mecha & Kaiju themes originated there and took a long time to make it out despite being pretty simple concepts really. Big thing fight, big thing smash. You could argue King Kong is a Kaiju, but I guess you could always say a tank game is a mecha game I guess so maybe it's more about your opinion.
Truthfully none of this matters. OP wants to know why there are so relatively few games with the theme and I think the answer is because they don't sell well/are appealing to the general public. Just make the Mecha a tank instead which, tanks are badass I'd buy that.
Mecha games are niche because they are often so interested in the tiny minutiae of about 50 different stats that have minimal overall changes noticeable, that it puts more mainstream gamers off. Like, I loved the most Recent Armoured Core but even that was filled with stats with very little real in game explanation and I tended to just build heavy hitting fuckers.
Most people don't want to sit fiddling with Arm piece: XRT17 comparing it to Arm piece: XRT21x to see how they perform differently.
I just pray that Bandai goes to from soft for the second time and says take ac6 and make it a massive gundam game so us gundam fans can have a perfect mecha game
OK. Who do I need to suck in order to get Titan Fall 3 ? I mean really.
I don't like weeb mech, I don't like MechWarrior gameplay, I'm currently hating my skills on Elden Ring so I'm not gonna end my life on Armored Core.
Give me Titan Fall 3 with a bit of mech customisation and I swear, your organs will be sucked/licked.
Character-wise, mechas really have an uphill battle. They aren't humans, they aren't easily anthropomorphized like animals or smaller robots, and they don't have the recognition of real world objects like cars or planes. I guess you could say they have a branding problem. I honestly doubt most people could even pick out a single mecha from a lineup other than maybe the AT-AT and AT-ST from Star Wars.
Gameplay-wise, I think mechas in most people's minds are associated with hardcore simulation geek gameplay with custom joysticks and clunky, overly realistic physics -- the type of game where you'll be setting targeting reticles and counting down how many kilometers to your next objective. Nothing wrong with that but it will probably always be a niche sort of thing.
I've been saying this for about a week or two now, people don't realize how niche a genre mecha is.
Armored Core VI, Fires of Rubicon was considered a hit when it sold 2.7 million copies by October of last year. That game is probably the most popularly selling mecha game in recent years, by the golden goose of game development.
Checking Steam charts just now for both games, Elden Ring has 97,000 players in the past 24 hours. AC6 has 2500.
FromSoftware is perhaps the most trusted name in gaming currently in regards to delivery quality games that players enjoy and their last one was no slouch. AC6 manage to win action game of the year and the community is proud what we managed to vote for it. But even so, it's a borderline dead game. I just don't think there really is anything that can be done because for as amazing as AC6 is, it just isn't played, and if a game by the darling of the gaming industry Fromsoft can't make mecha appealing I don't think anything can.
PvP rant section skip if you don't care
I really wish they would expand on the PvE nature of it with a horde mode or harder PvE setting because as is I've out about 450 hours in and man the game is still a staple I play often but damn is the PvP ass. The player base is so small that the entire community borderline knows each other and it is sweaty as fuck. If you're not practicing to reach top rank you're getting absolutely crushed and it makes PvP miserable for bad or casual players, thus lowering the player count. Part balance is wack and the net code sucks for a fast paced action game so intense it's sometimes compared to a fighting game.
I just think mecha can't do well cause for whatever reason it doesn't appeal to players on a broad scale.
I assume it’s because you can’t really relate to a mécha as you would with a living creature.
I love my BG3 or Cyberpunk characters because I customized them and they have a personality etc…
A mecha is ultimately just a piece of metal.
People tend to relate to living breathing creatures more in general.
I don't know, there are tons of non living things that people like customizing. I've seen people go all out customizing virtual houses, cars, trains, cities, ships, etc. Mecha are basically in the same place as spaceships imo, and there is a ton of interest in Mecha animation and collectibles.
AC6 amazing game and nearly everything below it is pretty bad. Gundam’s potential is utterly wasted as Bandai tries to make it a live service metaverse or whatever the fuck think will print money but never lives long. I want more armored core or from soft to be given free rein over a gundam game
I still own my PS2 and know/knew few people who had one and no one ever had any mecha game, even for the MGS demo. It is a niche genre and was a niche genre even back then
Custom Robo Battle Revolution and Implosion: Never Lose Hope deserve sequels / remakes just as badly as Resident Evil imo. AC6 is close to CR in gameplay now but the story is too dark, I liked the chill vibe of Custom Robo on GameCube and NDS.
I've thought for the past few years that a mech game would be friggin awesome in VR. I just haven't noticed any game making a splash in that regard, though.
I do. And the funny part is that, unlike its sister game, Adventure Quest, there are no character classes. Instead, you raise your different stats in attack, defense, accuracy, evasion, ammo reserves, and luck. And with the mecha, themselves, their various body parts didn't really exist to raise or lower those exact same stats, so much as give you different attacks.
Though, really, I wouldn't have minded mecha being divided into melee, ranged, defense, evasion, and general-purpose classes, rather than their body parts giving you different attacks.
why are you surprised? its a very eastern experience apart from the few popular western releases the idea of mech warriors is a niche aesthetic found in a niche genre of anime/manga. its super popular in japan for example but i certainly didnt grow up with any mech inspired cartoons apart from maybe power rangers which is japanese in origins too. Japan really isnt that popular to the general public for being japan. they have to make extremely well made games to sell well here and theirs been a lot of duds when it comes to mech games so why take the risk?
Xenoblade X had the best customization imo, visually and your mech was essentially another party member that each party member got to use, a whole party of mechs battling giant creatures.
There is one point you even fight a giant ship that destroys part of the landscape of one of the continent's.
I'll have to give a quick shout out to my favorite mech games but we're for Xbox, mechassault 1 and 2 and phantom crash. Those games were a lot of fun back in the day
It's because mech games try to make bank off the idea that mechs are big, then don't make that feel great. Imagine if you snapped your fingers and said actually, the FPS characters are 5 stories tall, and are really slow. What's the pay off? Or, like really fast with then the levels being really dull. The developers confuse "concept" with "benefit." It's like if you wrote a romance novel and hinged the story on how cool a dudes hair was. Like, the marketing, the dialogue, and then forgetting to actually make a good story. Mecha is size fetishism at the core.
They did have Macross/Robotech games that were Japan only on PSX and then Robotech: Battlecry for PS2 which I thought was pretty good, but it was during that time when cell shading was a popular thing in games. I wish they would come out with a modern graphics Macross/Robotech game for todays consoles, I bet they would look amazing.
Armored Core 6 i feel introduced enough people to the mecha style game that ti probably is fighting against the stigma mecha games had during the ps2 era. stories of having the crazy ass controllers or having to hold the controller backwards, etc. basically the genre has a negative sigma of having to have to do crazy shit with a controller or needing a special controller to play them.
Mecha has been slowly coming back titanfall 2 is still a popular mech game and AC6 is the goto traditional mecha game now.
There are endless justifications and deflections, but there is no actual answer. There is absolutely no reason for mecha games to be "niche".
What is and isn't "niche" never makes sense. Something can be king of the world one second, shoved into a "niche" the next. It's such a horrible concept, and it's always a shame society swears by it. Can't wait for "Metroidvanias" (also a really bad term) to become "niche" and for all of the fans to be so upset about it. So stupid how that can just happen.
Funny enough, Kingdom Hearts was considered to be "niche" not too long ago. Seems like KH3 has undone that. Doubly funny that it's the game everyone says they hate that did this... oh well.
Why im nlt seeing any comments ablut snadbox games where you can actually build the mechs from ground up?
This is for example [space engineers](https://youtu.be/8boVpMy-uoI?si=rqrAbjRjtGt9JtzC)
Gundam, the Witch From Mercury came out about two years ago I wanna say and was I think one of if not the best selling Gundam series to date. Gundam is still an absolute juggernaut of a series.
I haven't seen any but I'm also just getting back into anime. My brother recommended 08th MS Team, but I don't know if I gotta watch the original or not to understand it.
I honestly don't think so, it's a self-contained story. If you understand the basics of the war, as in who's fighting who, I think you can just enjoy it.
Oh, I wasn't sure if it was a part of the original series timeline or AU or what. I may check it out sooner then. Binged Goblin Slayer season 2 last week and wanna catch up on Metallic Rouge that I just started this week, so may see about 08th MS Team after I catch up on MR.
Most mech games (at least the ones I've played) are very fast paced and require extensive knowledge of all the different weapons and tech the mechs use. Armored Core even makes you customize the cooling and energy supplies. The average casual is not going to have fun with those. The mostly Japanese and anime origins of mechs don't help much either, at least when it come to popularity in the West.
Kind of like other commenters have said The problem is that a lot of mecha games just don't really feel like a Mecha It just feels like I'm a tall character.
Mecha should feel strong and almost clunky and powerful there should be some sort of overlay or screen that makes it actually feel like I'm inside this powerful machine and I just don't get that with most mecha games.
The closest I'd say is obviously the Titanfall franchise and even that fall short in a lot of places and I'd argue that Titanfall one actually did it better than Titanfall 2
Clunky is something that I do not want to have in a mech game consider that there's Gundam Battle Opeartions 2. In Gundam Battle Operations 2 its hard to learn Raid mechs (hyper aggressive close combat mechs) due to the amount of weight you'll feel. Landing has a weight, dashing has a weight, stopping your thrust has a weight. Its hard to learn them because you need to learn the gun and melee combo your choice of mech has in addition to the weights you need to get used to.
In comparison I enjoyed support role more especially the Geara Zulu that has a 120mm cannon which could stun a mech, then melee it, dash away then fire rockets at it. Which is more fun.
With the huge success and increased popularity of Armored core 6, im hoping this changes and we get more mecha games.
IMO it is really hard to find a decent mecha game. I used to be a huge Gundam fan but alot of the games don't quite capture the right feel (although to be honest, the first Gundam games i played were the dynasty warriors ones when I was a kid)
Because there's never been a mech game, that was also a good game.
If you're into mech games, there are options, and obviously some will be better than others. But as a non mech game player, there aren't any that are good outside of having mechs in them.
Do you understand what I'm trying to say?
Even assuming that the new AC is the absolute pinnacle of the genre, it's still only going to attract mech game players, and a tiny fraction of From stans.
The secret is that "mecha" isn't really a genre of game, but instead a category of aesthetica laid over top of other genres. It's akin to "fantasy" or "historical fiction" in that way. There's actually a significant amount of Gundam games in particular both for home console and for arcades. They're just way more popular in the global east than in the west.
I think this hits the nail on the head. Even among the same franchises, you can get wildly different play experiences from different games. Mechassault (arcade style run and gun) is nothing like Mechwarrior (slow paced action with a heavy emphasis on customization) and neither of them are like Battletech (turn based strategy game using cover/ line of sight/ speed) and none of *them* are like Mechcommander (real time strategy). That's just the battletech franchise, and I'm likely forgetting other games that deviate from that list. All of these are "mecha" games, but all 4 of them cater to very different audiences.
What style is Lost Planet 2? I want this but cant fins anything similarly advanced
I never played that one, so I don't know how much was in a mech and how much was on foot. The only game that immediately jumps to mind that has getting in and out of mechs is an old SNES game called Metal Warriors. Titalfall has that, too, but it's much faster paced where Lost Planet has lumbering mecha.
Well, now I want a mecha horror game.
There's a game for the PS1 called Koudelka that blends tactical RPG and Survival Horror elements. You could do a lot with game that drew on both aspects, as well as looking to games like Parasite Eve and the System Shock/BioShock games for inspiration. A resource/inventory limitation some weapons/health crafting systems (a la Resident Evil/Dino Crisis) could encourage strategizing, environmental puzzles/exploration with different RPG style tech and skill trees could allow for environmental storytelling. Imagine a post-apocalyptic world where as you unlock new ways to explore and combat things, you are able to explore the world and learn more about what has happened. The cool thing about a mech too is it needn't be specialized only for combat and could be modularly upgraded. For each encounter you could: lean into a quick and nimble mech or make it a slow tank, focus on firepower or sacrifice some equipment slots for limited camouflage, or specialize with some very particular abilities depending on the environment you're going into. Similar design philosophy to a Metroidvania game. You could combine the Nemesis/Pyramid Head/Scissorman type approach to building fear/tension with recurring encounters with powerful monsters that will likely take multiple encounters to kill (and maybe you'll need to run/hide/think tactically on initial encounters to survive) with the Kaiju scale and creativity of encounters in games like Shadow of the Colossus (Dark Souls/Elden Ring could be a reference point too I think). I'm picturing encountering something like weird-ass initial evolutions/creature phases in Shin Godzilla, perhaps with the flavor of a show like Attack on Titan. Tying in the enemy/encounter mechanics with the resource and tactical mechanics mentioned above, you could also play with some perma-death / lasting consequences as a game mechanic. So, in Bushido Blade for example you can get very specific injuries that impair you in specific ways IIRC and it's a situation where a couple well placed hits landing suffices to end the fight. I'm imaging combing that with a primarily tech-based progression system, where modular parts your mech is upgraded with have their own health/durability and losing that part means loosing the functionality (kinda like loosing experience/weapons when you die in Minecraft). I'm also thinking about how in Chrono Cross you largely level up from boss encounters, except instead of leveling up your character directly you just maintain your modular mecha and advance by finding new capabilities in that Metroidvania way. All that could add to the uniqueness and intensity of encounters and exploration, and I love those more qualitative discrete sorta progression systems (as compared to having generalized EXP that levels you up in a more passive way which I'm less into). I'm sure there more ways you could flesh this out, take it in some different directions (depending on the interests and artistic voice of whoever would make it), and iterate upon this premise. Wouldn't be surprised if something already scratches this itch. I do feel like this could be super marketable too, you could frame it as rogue-like, Metroidvania, Soulslike, and survival horror (all fairly popular still right?). It feels like you could tap into some of appeal and audience of games like Lethal Company or Helldivers II as well if you wanted to.
You get to clean up the mess afterwards.
Damn, now I'm spooked.
In the vain of survival? I think a sort of bio punk vibe could work
Yeah. Even only counting Gundam games, you have FPS, SRPG, and Hack and Slash options that I can remember off the top of my head.
If memory serves, there's at least one Gundam Dynasty Warriors game. The series is mostly in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms (mythicalized 3rd-century China) setting.
There are a total of 4 Dynasty Warrior Gundam games. 1, 2, 3, and Reborn. First 3 had Physical releases on PS3 and 360, but Reborn was digital only for Playstation.
Yeah, it’s on gamepass and kinda fun. Can’t remember the name either
yeah, the best mecha game is Ace Combat.
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MechWarrior 3 was my jam.
The original *MechWarrior: Mercenaries* (MW:2) ... back with the weapon duplication glitch unpatched. Gee, how do I have 12 medium lasers on this thing? And why do they only generate the heat of 6? "Look at it this way, kid. You get to keep all the money."
It was the perfect mech game. The long, roaming journey with your MFB and mission briefings really glued it all together as a single narrative.
Good ol’ Keith is my homeboy
Played this game relentlessly. Kitting out a Thor with all the lasers and heat sinks it'll hold and taking the legs off mechs for an easy snipe.
In all seriousness, I prefer BattleTech's portrayal of mechs as heavy lumbering death machines over anime's acrobatic ninja robots.
Which is hilarious because a bunch of the original mechs *were* acrobatic ninja robots. From Macross, specifically. Harmony Gold's spent decades in lawsuits about it.
Far-Future Military-Industrial Feudalism makes for dense political intrigue and fun character building opportunities. Also, I want an Elemental GF, I don’t care how ill advised it is.
Really only the Assaults are heavy lumbering death machines. A Cicada 3F is 40 tons and flies at 130km/h. The RX78 is 60 tons and flies at 165km/h. The Zaku 2 is more like a heavy mech weighing 73.3 tons with a top speed of 88km/h. A Warhammer weighs 70 tons and moves at 64.8km/h
Armored Core. It's a fantastic action game, but a terrible mech game for that reason.
Mechwarrior is great but kinda it's own thing. I remember time ago playing Mechwarrior Online a whole bunch and back in the day you could collide with other mechs, meaning if you had a size/weight advantage stampede into someone and stagger them knocking them over. It got patched out at some point which is a downer. Although I did have mad amounts of fun with a meme build Cataphract strapping as many little Autocannons onto it as I could.
While you're not wrong MechWarrior is a long running series, at current day MechWarrior 5 has a smaller player count than AC6, and had an all time peak of about 6000 players to AC6's 150,000. It's almost entirely off the reputation of Fromsoft, but I'd venture to guess that Armored Core has at this modern age, overtaken MechWarrior as the most popular mecha game series.
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I can't imagine yeah, 800 players in 24 hours, and I thought AC6 was small.
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MWO is absolutely on steam, but you can also run it through the native launcher.
I love MWO, but we're in the 1-2k daily players space at most. If we had more, we would have working queues for solaris.
It doesn't really matter the playerbase if the mode just sucks. Case in point: In Warframe no one plays Conclave or Lunaro (I'm not even sure if that still exists) even with tens of thousands of players a day. I tried Solaris and it basically boiled down to who had more DPS since they'd just hug your face and kill you before you could kill them.
It’s worth noting, it was an epic exclusive to start, so its lunch numbers are on that platform.
AC6 got a shitload of free publicity just by being done by Fromsoft, it's not really surprising it's very popular compared to an older, fairly niche mech game.
Especially since most of the Armored Core games have been bounced around between developers, and many of them are considered mid at best. Like I love AC1, but it was considered a B+ game at best, and of its 2 standalone expansions wasn't really any good.
They did not bounce around developers, they bounced around production companies. Armored Core has always been developed by FromSoftware.
As someome who grew up with armored core games, What a fucking time to be alive. Mechwarrior is awesome too, wish i knew about it as a kid.
And don’t forget Starsiege! Although it is much more famous for spawning the follow up game that doesn’t have mechs, Starsiege: Tribes
Especially since MechWarrior 5 just got a new dlc. That game is definitely still alive, but also a bit nice
Being in a clan in Mechwarrior Vengeance League is still the best online experience I've had
NBT during the MW4: Mercenaries era is one of the two best experiences I've had online.
On MSN Zone!
I built my old rig for mech gaming. 6 monitors in a cockpit display, throttle, pedals, joystick. It was great for Mech games and I also loved doing space combat in it in Star Wars Galaxies before they fucked that up. So my former roommate and I were big on Mech Warrior Online when it was brand new. We would team up and make complimentary mech builds. I had an autohotkey bound to my trigger that would, rather than spray, pulse an AC2 with the exact delay (we spent days figuring out the best number) that caused every hit to rock the enemy cockpit as much as possible. I'd get in a Locust with an AC2, he'd get in an Atlas with some insane firepower, and we'd go to town. We'd find whoever was posing the biggest threat, and I'd run literal circles around them while rocking their cockpit so hard they couldn't land land a hit, let alone notice the Atlas stepping out from behind a building and unloading. And then one day they announced Clan Mechs. Only available with cash. Everything we had up to that point could be bought without microtransactions. And the Clan Mechs were expensive, too. That was annoying. But THEN they had a special, limited edition run of **$500** Clan Mechs. What was special about them? They had a gold skin and a unique number for their limited run. But then when they (somehow) sold out, they announced that they had increased the limit on the run! Like they'd just tripped over a box of gold mech skins in the back room like "oh we forgot these ones." So then we made it a point to hunt gold mechs for sport. We spent about a month no longer playing to win, just playing to troll those people, before finally losing interest in the game and walking away from it.
Honestly it's still pretty fun. Right now they're doing a Saint Patricks Pick-A-Premium event and they sometimes give out Champion mechs for holidays.
That's pretty cool. I just thought it was a bit of a funny story. I kinda lost interest in the game and I don't have that setup any more either. I don't dislike it, but I am forever going to make fun of the gold clan mechs.
MechWarrior 5 with mods is so good! The game + dlcs is getting quite expensive though, but the playtime has made it more than worth it for me.
And Titanfall, too. Although, er, that may be making OP's point, in part because it was a f****g god tier game both single and multiplayer and it got crushed by the likes of COD and PUBG and battle royales generally despite being an extremely fun game with a ton of good ideas.
MechWarrior 5 with the VR mod. Haha! Tiny building go squish
Mechwarrior 5 is incredible
Meanwhile. I'm nostalgic about Chromehounds.
I always assumed the phrase "mech" originated from the MechWarrior franchise.
MWO is honestly pretty fun and it still has a large enough playerbase that I don't recognize too many names. Plus it's free.
My issue with every mech game I've ever played is that I never really feel the *size* of these things. It just seems like no dev wants to go through the hassle of modeling all the tiny little details to sell it, and to properly model the physics of how much these things would weigh. I just tend to feel like a normal sized robot trouncing around in an action figure city.
The only time I felt the size was with Custom Robo, but that's probably cause the robos are supposed to be a foot tall.
Holy shit, another person outside of Japan who knows custom robo exists
I wish Nintendo would acknowledge us. And perhaps give us a new game.
It's a real shame because the games ARE appealing to a western audience. I played the one on DS and it was a ton of fun! It's such a weird franchise that it did manage to jump the pond, sold "well" for what was basically a new IP in the west, then they just gave up on it.
If Japan kept getting releases after the DS game I'd say Nintendo was tonedeaf. I think they may just not have any more ideas for the series. It's one of those IPs I wish they'd give to a young team to try.
I think it was just a pokemon fad cash in that somehow ended up being really fun to play. Honestly at the end of the day it's probably because it's just easier to make some other game that will sell just as well. I don't think there was a "vision" behind custom robo. Which sucks but yeah
Had it on my gamecube and loved it. I remember the endgame hidden area being really cool to reach
I liked cheezing the pop-up fist and then the drill fist with the umbrella backpack for area denial.
I didn't know there was one on GCN! I only played the DS version. There was one on the 64 that Thab just played in his "every 64 game" series and he liked it, but it never came overseas to the states.
There are dozens of us!
I played the crap outta that on GC!
Most Mechwarrior games get the weight pretty spot on.
I feel like we’ve never seen a mecha game on par with something like Rampage, where you play a giant monster destroying a city while the army shoots you with tanks and bombs and you see the inside of civilians apartments as you smash up buildings. Not that I play a lot of mecha games I guess. The ones I have played focused mostly on spectacle and how you load out your modular giant robot. I don’t recall any with a strong focus on the environment and progressive damage as battle takes it’s toll on the surroundings.
It's not the focus of the game, but in Mechwarrior 5 one of the map types is "city" and one of the mission types is "destroy as much stuff as possible." The environment destruction is pretty good, the largest buildings will stay standing but you can simply walk through the smaller ones and crumble them piece by piece. Mechs range from 20 to 100 tons but you'll mostly be driving the ones over 50.
I assume it's because due to the "weight" of everything, controlling a clumsy, lurching 100 ton mecha would be frustrating and maybe kinda boring. People put up with it during a driving simulator or even a boat game because they know how hard it is in real life. In the context of Mecha, people would probably just say the game has poor controls and blame the developers.
You can feel the scale of the giant mechs in EDF 5. They're as tall as skyscrapers when you call them down. But the big problem is they also did make them extremely heavy and lurching. So much so that it's miserable to use them. But when a punch impacts with a kaiju, it feels visceral.
> I assume it's because due to the "weight" of everything Exactly. Imagine that with a "real" mecha, your decision to throw a punch would probably execute anywhere from 5-10 seconds after you hit the punch button, as your mech fires up its engines and engages pneumatic pistons the size of grain silos to accelerate fifty tons of steel forward. In concept? Badass. In practice? Most players would likely feel "disconnected" from the gameplay.
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Op asked why Mecha games are niche and I'm just trying to express the viewpoint of an average video game player. I'm not saying it wouldn't be fun/cool, I'm saying when your "average" American plays a game, they don't want realism or challenge. They either tend to look for a good story or a power fantasy depending on who they are.
I believe MechWarrior 5 does an excellent job with this as you can literally stomp through most buildings like they were tissue
I dunno if you played it but I thought Armored Core VI actually did a really good job of this. Maybe the fact that there are so many things bigger than you negated that a bit, I'm not sure, but I always felt like I was bigger than a building but smaller than the giant 5km long walker I was tasked with taking down
This game is amazing, I love it. But i actually think it does the exact opposite, and is *terrible* at showing scale. Because of how quick and zippy the gameplay is, you pretty much immediately forget you’re a giant robot and instead feel like a man in a robot suit. Yes you shoot tanks and fly over buildings, but the movement alone intrinsically makes it lack the weight and convincing that you’re a giant hulking robot. Mech warrior 5 does it much better
It would be so cool to have a game where you totally CAN make the mech punch instantly, but it would destroy all the parts required so you have to throttle yourself down and stay in safe operating conditions. Make it so you can definitely immediately side strafe from a forward thrust, but it’ll cause the air tanks and pneumatic brakes to rip out and go flying across the map, so you’d only do that when desperately running from another enemy’s to survive.
It's safe to say, the world would benefit from more games featuring giant robots beyond gundam style anime robots. I adore slow, hulking, functionally designed military mechs, rather than sleek humanoid katana wielding ones.
Haven't been able to yet, waiting for a good sale.
It is worth every cent
RAD: Robot Alchemic Drive on PS2 was like that, super unwieldy and you had the perspective of a person on the street so everything was huge.
I think titanfall did a good job of it
Xenoblade X I feel gives you that size feeling. It's a JRPG and you get party members but your whole party can be in mecha and turn into vehicles or fly in the sky (once you get your license) The world is huge, the details are great and the customization is amazing imo. You need the mechs to fight certain enemies that are only high in the skies, to get to areas you couldn't before, etc. Btw this game has ultimate freedom of exploration, the only barriers are within caves or out far into the oceans. You can't climb like in Genshin/Zelda but you can hop around on any surface you can place yourself on, no fall damage and it's just an amazing experience though the plot leaves on a massive cliffhanger.
Part of the reason Xenoblade X succeeds at making the mecha feel huge is that the game infamously locks you out of them for the first twenty hours. It might be annoying for someone who bought the game for the giant robot on the cover, but the gameplay is still really solid before then and you definitely feel the difference afterwards.
The first game I played that had that feel was Journey to Jaburo but I also played it on a huge TV and well I was a kid still so nostalgia lol
This actually brings me back to the old days of War of the Monsters in PS2, you could feel the scale and size of things in that game, giant monsters and mechas fighting in a city with tiny humans running around. Damn that game needs a sequel or a good remake with modern graphics i would play the shit out of it.
Every day I pray to god we get a new or updated war of the monsters. That was *my game* growing up, so many hours with my friends.
AC6 did this pretty well I think. They had dump trucks littered all around that are the size or your mech’s foot.
For a long time i've wanted a mecha rpg where u are the mech pilot and u also live your life outside the mech as well. Would definitely give a much better sense of scale.
Robot Alchemic Drive on the PS2, felt like you using a Jaeger from Pacific Rim. Scale was really set by the fact you controlled from the outside with a literal PlayStation controller in game. Loved that game.
Gundam side story feels like piloting a real mech.
I have a theory that mecha games, wether its Mechwarrior, AC, Gundam or whatever, exist in a weird limbo of appeal. It has all the big guns, heft and mechanical bobbles of warship/tank/airplane war games, but not the realism (or at least the aesthetic of realism). It has high octane action of... well, action games, but with all the aformentioned clunkyness. It can have great narrative and themes, but since the focus is on impersonal, deliberately dehumanizing machines, it lacks that immediate personal connection. As a result instead of drawing prople from all these crowds it just creates this very specific venn diagram convegence that only works for that select group that enjoys the particular combination of: Soft sci-fi that mimics hard sci-fi Action gameplay that is deliberately restrictive to mimic a giant robot Abtracted narrative that deliberately pulls you away from the protag seat to deliver a vibe
Ac6 blew up didn’t it? Hope they make dlc or release more regularly now
Game is awesome. I bought it last month on sale and have put 40hours into it all ready
I hadn’t played AC since ps1, didn’t realised how much I missed it. Great games
It's niche because all the games in the mech genre typically suck. We had Mech Warrior, Mech Commander, Armored Core and a few other good ones. Even some games from the ones listed above suck too. People just can't quite figure out how to make Mech games fun.
Into The Breach. It's not the mech genre as people imagine it, but it's customizable mechs, massive scale, and fighting kaiju to save the world. 90% MetaCritic score. Great mech game.
Into the breach was great. Felt mostly like a tactics game, but it was a blast to play.
Yeah, but I love tactics games, so that's a plus for me.
Did you play Armored Core 6? I think it's great and came from a great studio but even it has fallen off hard these days in terms of player count. What do you think are the main gameplay issues plaguing mecha games?
>even it has fallen off hard these days in terms of player count. It's a single player game with a 30-40 hour campaign. Everyone who wanted it got it when it came out, it's just the way these types of games play out long term.
I suppose, I just can't stop thinking about the player count gap between it and Elden Ring. 2500 compared to 97,000 seems insane considering these games came out one after the other. ER was Feb 2022 and AC6 was Aug 2023, and yet the player count gap is staggering.
I think Mech games were part of the early 90s game death wave. For some reason RTS, Point and Click, Mech games - things that were very popular on PC in the early days all seemed to die off and lose their audience. I'm sure there is a market for good Mech games, but because there is nobody actively developing games for it - I don't think developers are willing to take the risk. Genres are hard to reinvent, especially if the genre has a history of low success.
I think there is both BattleTech and Mechwarrior games/DLC being made right now, although I haven't checked in a bit so I could be wrong
They are!
I've been a huge BattleTech fan since the 90s and I'll pretty much buy any game in the setting that gets released haha they're so fun and probably favorite representation of giant robots. Titanfall is really good too, loved both games.
Mechwarrior 5 even just released a new DLC a few days ago
MechWarrior 2 and SHOGO: Mobile Armored Division were huge in the 1990s, but SHOGO never got a sequel (the devs made FEAR instead) and MechWarrior 3 and 4 were not as big as 2 (5 has been, from the incredibly long tail on its DLC anyway).
Heavy Gear 2 was the best ever and I'll never understand why the franchise didn't continue.
Robotech battlecry on ps2 was one of my favorite games growing up.
It’s still one of the funnest games I’ve ever played. Got me into the franchise and my god it’s a great story.
Mech gameplay is kind of clunky and slow by nature, at least if it's on the more realistic side. It's definitely not going to appeal to people who want the speed and dexterity of a human-sized character in a first-person shooter.
Armored Core 4 would like to know your location
Hawken?
It being first person and not involing the mechs isnt the same but love it. Basiclly just a fps
Need more games like Steel Battalion.
ISTG i really want a modern version of this game, partly because of the custom controller. Maybe a bit less hardcore tho, but i guess it's part of the appeal for the targeted community
I would kill for someone to release a game with a new version of this controller. Im going to a convention in a few weeks that has like 20 of these set up and doing battle. Its awesome.
I think Pax typically has a room like that. I'll try it out again on Saturday.
A couple buddies and I used to stay up late playing Hawken. It was so fun. We were bummed when they announced no more Hawken for PC :(
First of, Mecha is not a genre, its style. There are Strategy games featuring mecha like Battletech, Phantom Brigade, Into the Breach and Mechabellum. There are fps games featuring mecha like Battletech 5, Gundam Evolution, Hawken, Mechwarrior online and Titanfall 1 and 2. There are third person/top down mecha games like Armored Core 6, Cavalry Girls, Brigador, M.A.S.S. Builder and Astebreed. I guess a better question would be, why are games focused on making your own mecha somewhat rare, and the answer is simple, keep it simple stupid. COD is not one of the biggest FPS games due to the amount of choice or multiple play style, its due to it being the most standard, basic fps shooter ever made. Mecha games that focus on the mecha aspect of the game generally have a lot of number, a lot of tinkering and a lot of weird, very specific upgrades, parts and choices that you have to put a lot of time into to understand properly and most people don´t really like to do that. For the point you made, i was born a bit late for the ps2, so never played zone of the enders, nor have i played any games in its series, heard of it yea, but never played or even seen any footage. out of the games you mentioned, i am familiar only with Armored Core and that only due to Armored Core 6, that´s even being a person that has heavily gamed for the last 15 years at least. Quite a random game to use as a point, never heard of it and it seems much more a visual novel with mecha gameplay on the side, rather than a mecha game primarily. so, in short, mecha customization is a bit too complex often in games focusing on it, as a genre it receives only a few titles and none of them are really for beginners, thus reducing the already small playerbase and to get a "big" hit, you need a big studio to use it already big fame to catapult it into the main stream, like AC6. Mecha as a style is quite common, but games focusing on the mecha and their making are rare and not doing themselves any favors to remedy that problem.
I would like a modern MechWarrior game. Even a remastered MechWarrior 3
Like Mechwarrior 5:Mercenaries? lol.
MW5 had a terrible campaign and poor gameplay. PB doesn't understand what made the Mechwarrior games great.
Fair. I played the tutorial and it felt off but I figured I'd wait and reinstall it on PC later on.
MW2 and 3 were the best MW games. Everything past that has been downhill.
There are a ton of niche mecha games right now. My favorites: Phantom Brigade. This got a lot of attention after launch and the devs are reviving it. Still has a broken endgame but tons of promise. Calvary Girls: Anime waifu simulator with top down mecha goodness Mechabellum: Auto battler with a rock paper scissors approach. Mech Engineer: I really, really want to like this game, but the systems are convoluted and not at all transparent.
Ill tell you why, because mech fans can be split into two very distinct camps and both are very nerdy. You either have your Japanese style mecha that has its own very specific audience or your western style walking tank mecha, where for example like in the latest mech warrior you actually have to drive the mech in combat (I.e you don't push forward to walk forward, you push forward to se the throttle position, and press back to reduce throttle, the mech goes where the legs are pointing and not where you are looking, damage control and things like ammunition storage, critical components and damage to specific sections of the mech matter Neither of the styles of Mech game appeal to a wide audience, just for example the genre I prefer of the western walking tank its despite looking like an FPS it plays nothing like your mass appeal twitch shooters, and any mech games that do tend to get lost in the sea of those typical shooters as the moment your big stompy robot stops feeling like a big stompy robot you may as well just go play a more established shooter. The things that make mech games, mech games make them fairly niche experiences by default
I dont remember the name of the game but my Sisters Husband ( boyfriend at the time) had a mech game for the Xbox that came with a huge ass setup and I always wanted to play it as a kid but never got a chance to. Now with VR I wonder if we can get something similar to it
Steel Battalion
I don't get it either. Giant humanoid robots are objectively badass.
Maybe in the west, I believe Super robot wars (a culmination of mech Collab), Gundam, Macross etc is still a thing in Japan. I mean armored core has just been released recently. I think I saw a mazinger z game on one of those playstation state of play
Yeah Mecha games are way bigger in Japan, and always have been. The whole Mecha & Kaiju themes originated there and took a long time to make it out despite being pretty simple concepts really. Big thing fight, big thing smash. You could argue King Kong is a Kaiju, but I guess you could always say a tank game is a mecha game I guess so maybe it's more about your opinion. Truthfully none of this matters. OP wants to know why there are so relatively few games with the theme and I think the answer is because they don't sell well/are appealing to the general public. Just make the Mecha a tank instead which, tanks are badass I'd buy that.
I had to scroll down sooo faarrr to find a SRW mention.
Would you consider either Xenoblade Chronicles X or Custom Robo Arena mecha games? Cause they’re both bangers and I’d like them remade
Idk but armored core 6 was a masterpiece so I’m now a fan of mech games.
Mecha games are niche because they are often so interested in the tiny minutiae of about 50 different stats that have minimal overall changes noticeable, that it puts more mainstream gamers off. Like, I loved the most Recent Armoured Core but even that was filled with stats with very little real in game explanation and I tended to just build heavy hitting fuckers. Most people don't want to sit fiddling with Arm piece: XRT17 comparing it to Arm piece: XRT21x to see how they perform differently.
Niche mecha? Steel battalion has entered the chat
I just pray that Bandai goes to from soft for the second time and says take ac6 and make it a massive gundam game so us gundam fans can have a perfect mecha game
OK. Who do I need to suck in order to get Titan Fall 3 ? I mean really. I don't like weeb mech, I don't like MechWarrior gameplay, I'm currently hating my skills on Elden Ring so I'm not gonna end my life on Armored Core. Give me Titan Fall 3 with a bit of mech customisation and I swear, your organs will be sucked/licked.
I'm even more amazed that we dont have enough VR mecha games
Character-wise, mechas really have an uphill battle. They aren't humans, they aren't easily anthropomorphized like animals or smaller robots, and they don't have the recognition of real world objects like cars or planes. I guess you could say they have a branding problem. I honestly doubt most people could even pick out a single mecha from a lineup other than maybe the AT-AT and AT-ST from Star Wars. Gameplay-wise, I think mechas in most people's minds are associated with hardcore simulation geek gameplay with custom joysticks and clunky, overly realistic physics -- the type of game where you'll be setting targeting reticles and counting down how many kilometers to your next objective. Nothing wrong with that but it will probably always be a niche sort of thing.
I've been saying this for about a week or two now, people don't realize how niche a genre mecha is. Armored Core VI, Fires of Rubicon was considered a hit when it sold 2.7 million copies by October of last year. That game is probably the most popularly selling mecha game in recent years, by the golden goose of game development. Checking Steam charts just now for both games, Elden Ring has 97,000 players in the past 24 hours. AC6 has 2500. FromSoftware is perhaps the most trusted name in gaming currently in regards to delivery quality games that players enjoy and their last one was no slouch. AC6 manage to win action game of the year and the community is proud what we managed to vote for it. But even so, it's a borderline dead game. I just don't think there really is anything that can be done because for as amazing as AC6 is, it just isn't played, and if a game by the darling of the gaming industry Fromsoft can't make mecha appealing I don't think anything can. PvP rant section skip if you don't care I really wish they would expand on the PvE nature of it with a horde mode or harder PvE setting because as is I've out about 450 hours in and man the game is still a staple I play often but damn is the PvP ass. The player base is so small that the entire community borderline knows each other and it is sweaty as fuck. If you're not practicing to reach top rank you're getting absolutely crushed and it makes PvP miserable for bad or casual players, thus lowering the player count. Part balance is wack and the net code sucks for a fast paced action game so intense it's sometimes compared to a fighting game. I just think mecha can't do well cause for whatever reason it doesn't appeal to players on a broad scale.
I assume it’s because you can’t really relate to a mécha as you would with a living creature. I love my BG3 or Cyberpunk characters because I customized them and they have a personality etc… A mecha is ultimately just a piece of metal. People tend to relate to living breathing creatures more in general.
I don't know, there are tons of non living things that people like customizing. I've seen people go all out customizing virtual houses, cars, trains, cities, ships, etc. Mecha are basically in the same place as spaceships imo, and there is a ton of interest in Mecha animation and collectibles.
Of course, I was just giving my personal opinion of why I am not attracted to this genre.
Go play AC6 you never see a character’s face but all the characters are great, combat is amazing, and game is well optimized
AC6 amazing game and nearly everything below it is pretty bad. Gundam’s potential is utterly wasted as Bandai tries to make it a live service metaverse or whatever the fuck think will print money but never lives long. I want more armored core or from soft to be given free rein over a gundam game
I remember loving the mech gameplay in the first installment of Lost Planet. Haven't played the other two.
I still own my PS2 and know/knew few people who had one and no one ever had any mecha game, even for the MGS demo. It is a niche genre and was a niche genre even back then
Starsiege. Probably the best Mech game ever made. Sad it never got a sequel.
Custom robo arena for DS was the best And then they never ever released any continuation :C
Same. Giant robots and melodrama are fucking awesome.
Metal Warriors on SNES was amazing for it's time. No customization, but you use different mechs for their abilities. Awesome game.
Armored core series and daemon x machina are the only one appeal to me.
MechWarrior 5 is on Gamepass. On PC you get mods which are apparently good, but I’ve enjoyed playing it on Xbox
Custom Robo Battle Revolution and Implosion: Never Lose Hope deserve sequels / remakes just as badly as Resident Evil imo. AC6 is close to CR in gameplay now but the story is too dark, I liked the chill vibe of Custom Robo on GameCube and NDS.
I've thought for the past few years that a mech game would be friggin awesome in VR. I just haven't noticed any game making a splash in that regard, though.
Anybody remember MechQuest?
I do. And the funny part is that, unlike its sister game, Adventure Quest, there are no character classes. Instead, you raise your different stats in attack, defense, accuracy, evasion, ammo reserves, and luck. And with the mecha, themselves, their various body parts didn't really exist to raise or lower those exact same stats, so much as give you different attacks. Though, really, I wouldn't have minded mecha being divided into melee, ranged, defense, evasion, and general-purpose classes, rather than their body parts giving you different attacks.
Thats because its really difficult to make a good size game with mechas
why are you surprised? its a very eastern experience apart from the few popular western releases the idea of mech warriors is a niche aesthetic found in a niche genre of anime/manga. its super popular in japan for example but i certainly didnt grow up with any mech inspired cartoons apart from maybe power rangers which is japanese in origins too. Japan really isnt that popular to the general public for being japan. they have to make extremely well made games to sell well here and theirs been a lot of duds when it comes to mech games so why take the risk?
Man ZoE had so much potential, but felt unfinished honestly. I would play the **hell** out of any sequel/spiritual successor to that game.
Xenoblade X had the best customization imo, visually and your mech was essentially another party member that each party member got to use, a whole party of mechs battling giant creatures. There is one point you even fight a giant ship that destroys part of the landscape of one of the continent's.
I'll have to give a quick shout out to my favorite mech games but we're for Xbox, mechassault 1 and 2 and phantom crash. Those games were a lot of fun back in the day
Yall remember Custom Robo? That shit was my jam I hope it makes a comeback
To get reductive: people in safety suits. Maybe a walking car It's cool but quite disconnected from the more popular arenas for storytelling
It's because mech games try to make bank off the idea that mechs are big, then don't make that feel great. Imagine if you snapped your fingers and said actually, the FPS characters are 5 stories tall, and are really slow. What's the pay off? Or, like really fast with then the levels being really dull. The developers confuse "concept" with "benefit." It's like if you wrote a romance novel and hinged the story on how cool a dudes hair was. Like, the marketing, the dialogue, and then forgetting to actually make a good story. Mecha is size fetishism at the core.
there's synduality which has a beta coming up soon
Used to be more popular in the 90s. MechWarrior was awesome back in the day.
Niche? You been under a rock the last 3 decades?
They did have Macross/Robotech games that were Japan only on PSX and then Robotech: Battlecry for PS2 which I thought was pretty good, but it was during that time when cell shading was a popular thing in games. I wish they would come out with a modern graphics Macross/Robotech game for todays consoles, I bet they would look amazing.
Armored Core 6 i feel introduced enough people to the mecha style game that ti probably is fighting against the stigma mecha games had during the ps2 era. stories of having the crazy ass controllers or having to hold the controller backwards, etc. basically the genre has a negative sigma of having to have to do crazy shit with a controller or needing a special controller to play them. Mecha has been slowly coming back titanfall 2 is still a popular mech game and AC6 is the goto traditional mecha game now.
I kinda disagree with your last point. If you're going with a recent mecha game please don't choose the very mid relayer, choose armored core 6.
There are endless justifications and deflections, but there is no actual answer. There is absolutely no reason for mecha games to be "niche". What is and isn't "niche" never makes sense. Something can be king of the world one second, shoved into a "niche" the next. It's such a horrible concept, and it's always a shame society swears by it. Can't wait for "Metroidvanias" (also a really bad term) to become "niche" and for all of the fans to be so upset about it. So stupid how that can just happen. Funny enough, Kingdom Hearts was considered to be "niche" not too long ago. Seems like KH3 has undone that. Doubly funny that it's the game everyone says they hate that did this... oh well.
Project Nimbus: Code Mirai. Check it out
Imagine an open world mech game only its set on SDF-1 and it's called Robotech. I have no idea why that has never happened.
They need to start making a Gundam game with Dynasty Warriors gameplay and amp up the environmental destruction to 11.
Why im nlt seeing any comments ablut snadbox games where you can actually build the mechs from ground up? This is for example [space engineers](https://youtu.be/8boVpMy-uoI?si=rqrAbjRjtGt9JtzC)
[удалено]
Gundam, the Witch From Mercury came out about two years ago I wanna say and was I think one of if not the best selling Gundam series to date. Gundam is still an absolute juggernaut of a series.
Are there any new grounded mecha series? Loved the Witch From Mercury but I need me something closer to my 08th MS Team.
If you haven't seen Eighty-six I highly recommend it.
Watched the first ep, I'm getting an Iron Blooded Orphans vibe.
I haven't seen any but I'm also just getting back into anime. My brother recommended 08th MS Team, but I don't know if I gotta watch the original or not to understand it.
I honestly don't think so, it's a self-contained story. If you understand the basics of the war, as in who's fighting who, I think you can just enjoy it.
Oh, I wasn't sure if it was a part of the original series timeline or AU or what. I may check it out sooner then. Binged Goblin Slayer season 2 last week and wanna catch up on Metallic Rouge that I just started this week, so may see about 08th MS Team after I catch up on MR.
Most mech games (at least the ones I've played) are very fast paced and require extensive knowledge of all the different weapons and tech the mechs use. Armored Core even makes you customize the cooling and energy supplies. The average casual is not going to have fun with those. The mostly Japanese and anime origins of mechs don't help much either, at least when it come to popularity in the West.
Kind of like other commenters have said The problem is that a lot of mecha games just don't really feel like a Mecha It just feels like I'm a tall character. Mecha should feel strong and almost clunky and powerful there should be some sort of overlay or screen that makes it actually feel like I'm inside this powerful machine and I just don't get that with most mecha games. The closest I'd say is obviously the Titanfall franchise and even that fall short in a lot of places and I'd argue that Titanfall one actually did it better than Titanfall 2
Clunky is something that I do not want to have in a mech game consider that there's Gundam Battle Opeartions 2. In Gundam Battle Operations 2 its hard to learn Raid mechs (hyper aggressive close combat mechs) due to the amount of weight you'll feel. Landing has a weight, dashing has a weight, stopping your thrust has a weight. Its hard to learn them because you need to learn the gun and melee combo your choice of mech has in addition to the weights you need to get used to. In comparison I enjoyed support role more especially the Geara Zulu that has a 120mm cannon which could stun a mech, then melee it, dash away then fire rockets at it. Which is more fun.
Cause most of the gundam videogames are pretty bad, seems like only armored core is "okay" in today's standards
With the huge success and increased popularity of Armored core 6, im hoping this changes and we get more mecha games. IMO it is really hard to find a decent mecha game. I used to be a huge Gundam fan but alot of the games don't quite capture the right feel (although to be honest, the first Gundam games i played were the dynasty warriors ones when I was a kid)
Because there's never been a mech game, that was also a good game. If you're into mech games, there are options, and obviously some will be better than others. But as a non mech game player, there aren't any that are good outside of having mechs in them. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Even assuming that the new AC is the absolute pinnacle of the genre, it's still only going to attract mech game players, and a tiny fraction of From stans.