First of all, I didn't play the beta(s). Second, I'm a huge f2p leecher. I play gachas, mmos and everything in-between with the express intention of not spending a dime. Until launch, I didn't even know this game had any other modes except the 6v6 arena. So that's what I came to MechaBREAK for, and that's what I'm gonna review.

After 8 hours I can comfortably say this is a fun game. It looks good, it runs good (more on this later), it scales well, and it's the first multiplayer game in a while that kept me going "one more match" for an entire day. In my 8 hours at time of review, I have never once felt I was at a disadvantage in the 6v6 and 3v3 modes.

People are railing on the game for customization and pay2win but I've been winning just fine without spending a dime. I spent like 2 hours (give or take) in the pilot customization interface, there are sliders galore for anything your mind could conjure. Maybe the interface is not very intuitive and people don't realize there are sliders? To add to this, you can customize your character at any point afterwards if you're not satisfied with your initial output, FOR FREE. Other games I've played ask for money to alter your character's appearance after it's locked in. Here they ask for money for swapping genders. That's... fine? Which brings me to my next point:

This is predominantly a 3rd person mecha hero shooter. Your "pilot" is nothing more than a glorified Christmas tree on which the developers hope you'll hang overpriced ornamental cosmetics. If you care about prancing about looking pretty in a singleplayer space, sure, be aware that you're gonna get milked. But if you care about actual gameplay, this game is as good as it gets when it comes to mecha combat. With one ongoing caveat:

At launch, there are 3 mechs that are not free to unlock. You can unlock them PERMANENTLY with currency earned from playing matches. The economy of this currency is very lenient with its rewards at the moment, and you could probably unlock one of the gated mechs in as little as a day of play. My only long-term concern here is that they might increase prices of new mechs down the line, or lower currency rewards from matches, leading to a longer grind to unlock whatever's new. Another ongoing concern might be balancing and the fallacy of releasing new mechs that are overpowered in the arena, baiting whales into splurging early to unlock them. Time will tell. That being said, if you enjoy playing matches, and the economy stays the same, you'll have no problem unlocking whatever new mech you want simply by playing the game.

Now about performance: a heads up to RTX 4070 users - the game locks us out of using Frame Gen for some stupid reason. This can be easily bypassed by going into:

steamapps\common\MechaBREAK\Game\MechaBreak\Oversea

editing TargetGfxRenderer.config in your favorite text editor and changing "DirectX11" to "DirectX12". Save changes and you're good to go.

The launcher will still show DX12 as greyed out/unselectable but upon entering the game, shaders will be recompiled again and you will be able to FrameGen. I have my game capped at 90fps with a mix of high/cinematic graphics settings, running DLSS balanced at 3440x1440 and I get a steady FPS with occasional 1/2fps drops. I was hoping I'd be able to run the game on maxxed out Cinematic but oh well. I'm happy with the initial performance after my graphics tweaks, the game still looks great and most importantly for a multiplayer game, it runs great too. Here's hoping for more performance tweaks further down the line.

All in all, this is a solid 3rd person mecha hero shooter. They 100% nailed the feeling of flying around in light mechs, being an annoying, hard to hit pest, or a ultra-heavy brick wall of an absolute unit, carrying around more guns than common sense, unloading into anything that dares approach. In terms of hit registration satisfaction and feel, I rate this way above Marvel Rivals, a game that I very much wanted to love but couldn't because of how floaty and lacking in impact it felt. It's funny that a game about flying mechs feels less floaty than a game about superheroes punching each other.

If you bothered reading all the way to the end of this, give the game a try, it's free after all, and it might just leave a lasting impression on you.

First of all, I didn't play the beta(s). Second, I'm a huge f2p leecher. I play gachas, mmos and everything in-between with the express intention of not spending a dime. Until launch, I didn't even know this game had any other modes except the 6v6 arena. So that's what I came to MechaBREAK for, and that's what I'm gonna review. After 8 hours I can comfortably say this is a fun game. It looks good, it runs good (more on this later), it scales well, and it's the first multiplayer game in a while that kept me going "one more match" for an entire day. In my 8 hours at time of review, I have never once felt I was at a disadvantage in the 6v6 and 3v3 modes. People are railing on the game for customization and pay2win but I've been winning just fine without spending a dime. I spent like 2 hours (give or take) in the pilot customization interface, there are sliders galore for anything your mind could conjure. Maybe the interface is not very intuitive and people don't realize there are sliders? To add to this, you can customize your character at any point afterwards if you're not satisfied with your initial output, FOR FREE. Other games I've played ask for money to alter your character's appearance after it's locked in. Here they ask for money for swapping genders. That's... fine? Which brings me to my next point: This is predominantly a 3rd person mecha hero shooter. Your "pilot" is nothing more than a glorified Christmas tree on which the developers hope you'll hang overpriced ornamental cosmetics. If you care about prancing about looking pretty in a singleplayer space, sure, be aware that you're gonna get milked. But if you care about actual gameplay, this game is as good as it gets when it comes to mecha combat. With one ongoing caveat: At launch, there are 3 mechs that are not free to unlock. You can unlock them PERMANENTLY with currency earned from playing matches. The economy of this currency is very lenient with its rewards at the moment, and you could probably unlock one of the gated mechs in as little as a day of play. My only long-term concern here is that they might increase prices of new mechs down the line, or lower currency rewards from matches, leading to a longer grind to unlock whatever's new. Another ongoing concern might be balancing and the fallacy of releasing new mechs that are overpowered in the arena, baiting whales into splurging early to unlock them. Time will tell. That being said, if you enjoy playing matches, and the economy stays the same, you'll have no problem unlocking whatever new mech you want simply by playing the game. Now about performance: a heads up to RTX 4070 users - the game locks us out of using Frame Gen for some stupid reason. This can be easily bypassed by going into: steamapps\common\MechaBREAK\Game\MechaBreak\Oversea editing TargetGfxRenderer.config in your favorite text editor and changing "DirectX11" to "DirectX12". Save changes and you're good to go. The launcher will still show DX12 as greyed out/unselectable but upon entering the game, shaders will be recompiled again and you will be able to FrameGen. I have my game capped at 90fps with a mix of high/cinematic graphics settings, running DLSS balanced at 3440x1440 and I get a steady FPS with occasional 1/2fps drops. I was hoping I'd be able to run the game on maxxed out Cinematic but oh well. I'm happy with the initial performance after my graphics tweaks, the game still looks great and most importantly for a multiplayer game, it runs great too. Here's hoping for more performance tweaks further down the line. All in all, this is a solid 3rd person mecha hero shooter. They 100% nailed the feeling of flying around in light mechs, being an annoying, hard to hit pest, or a ultra-heavy brick wall of an absolute unit, carrying around more guns than common sense, unloading into anything that dares approach. In terms of hit registration satisfaction and feel, I rate this way above Marvel Rivals, a game that I very much wanted to love but couldn't because of how floaty and lacking in impact it felt. It's funny that a game about flying mechs feels less floaty than a game about superheroes punching each other. If you bothered reading all the way to the end of this, give the game a try, it's free after all, and it might just leave a lasting impression on you.