Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II

[h3] To keep this brief: The game is not bad, but it is VERY different [/h3] I'll preface this by saying that I love everything involved with this project. I love admech, I love turn based combat, and I love the studio behind this game both for Mechanicus I and Ixion. Alas, first my hour or two of Mechanicus II can be only described as jarring and a bit disappointing. The voice acting is not that bad for the most part but ads very little to the product and was a fully wasted effort (thank god it can be turned off). Cutting out the customization of tech priests from the previous game was a questionable choice at best just like cutting out the exploration. I was not a fan of the point rework as well. However, about halfway through the game, it grew on me. It is almost nothing like Mechanicus but in vacuum it's not bad at all. I actually got to enjoy it quite a lot by the time it was over. The combat being more focused on "chaff" units was a pretty fun change of pace. I enjoyed the new unit and progression not being locked behind certain missions. I still do must point out several hurdles I encountered. On launch performance was... not good but this seems to be fixed. What …

OMG "look what they have done to my boy!". This is insanely boring and repetitive compared to the first game. I've been slogging through it for 50 hours to "get my monies worth" but I only just finished Act 2 of the Mechanicus campaign. I have no idea what the plot/story is, who any of the tech priest are or why I should give a ♥♥♥♥ which I pick for which mission. Rather than building a squad of overpowered bad asses that some damn fool accused of being the best, you have to pick one each time with mediocre abilities/upgrades and a bunch of butt munching cannon fodder to go with them. Instead of a mission being using each mega priest in turn, you use the priest once.....followed by seemingly endless turns using the ♥♥♥♥ munchers with no feeling of agency. Never had any issues with bugs with the original, this one looks a little better, but runs worse and crashes often. Don't buy.

I went in to this game wanting to like it and some part of me does. But it just makes a lot of baffling decisions that ultimately weaken the overall product. What was complex in the first game (tech priest customization, tomb exploration, turn delays, etc) has been simplified. and what was simple in the first game has been complexified (non-priest unit abilities, movement, the in game economy, cognition and canticles, and the narrative) has been made complex. Neither of these changes are to the games benefit, as the main plot has too many threads that it can satisfyingly resolve in its linear fashion, and gameplay becomes stagnant as it becomes far too over reliant on non-priest units and their limited abilities. The Necrons add a badly needed amount of gameplay variety halfway through but it's just not enough to carry this game. And it's still just as unbalanced as the first one halfway through a playthrough. And the soundtrack, though good, needed more track diversity and quantity.

While not what i was expecting based on the first game, it is very much its own beast, still a ton of fun, great story and enjoying both factions. Clearly made by people who love the setting.

There are many flaws that the first game didn't have, and are present here. I could write a long list of everything wrong, however I don't believe Bulwark Studios are interested in improving the game currently, due to lack of updates. I can't recommend the game and most likely never will. I hope to be wrong.

i weep for the money that was spent to gift me this game did they look at everything that made mechanicus 1 good and decide to take it as a warning sign to not do any of it it looks pretty fine i assume even the cutscenes use the default idle animations of the characters man(atleast the first few cutscenes of the necrons this game is seriously difficult to play sometimes, literally has the opposite of what made me keep coming back to mechanicus 1 over n over again) just this game couldve been so much better