Games featuring battlemechs have experienced a surge in popularity in recent years. And they tend to be very different from one another too. For example, one of my all-time favorite titles, BATTLETECH is an adventure where all the combats are turn-based and tactical. Meanwhile, another very popular title, MechWarrior 5, has a first-person interface that puts players in the driver’s and commander’s seat of their very own lance of battlemechs. Other titles like Megaton Musashi W: Wired offer even more options with it being a sort of combination visual novel and arcade battler.
The title that we are reviewing today, Iron Core: Mech Survivor, provides yet another way to experience mech combat. The new game, which is available for the PC through the Steam platform, is much less ambitious in scale compared with any of the aforementioned mech titles but is still a lot of fun to play. It’s much more of a casual type of game too which anyone can quickly learn to play.
The premise of Iron Core is that it’s been 100 years since a nuclear apocalypse wiped out most of humanity. There are a few survivors here and there, but the planet is mostly empty of other humans anyway. During the century while the Earth was cooling off, a handful of artificial intelligences waited in shelters, keeping things safe and ready for the time when humanity could return and rebuild the planet. Now, it’s time to set out and reclaim the planet.
In a neat twist of fate, you don’t play as a human. Instead, you are the AI in Iron Core: Mech Survivor, which is embedded inside one of several different kinds of battlemechs. Your AI will need the protection and firepower of one of those giant robots of destruction too because while there are not many humans left, there are armies of mutants of every size and description. The mutants, which mostly look like bugs or spiders, are never ending and come after you in great swarms. You mech is equipped with a variety of offensive and defensive weapons to deal with packs of mutants, although your very first starting mech is pretty humble with just basic armor, a rifle and a blade.
You will quickly discover that Iron Core is very much a bullet heaven type of game. Killing mutants, which you will do in droves, causes resources to drop which function like experience points.
Once you earn enough XP, you are given a random draw of three cards for upgrades. You can pick one card each time you level up. Some of the cards are pretty basic but necessary, like increasing your weapon damage, while others will unlock new capabilities like a shield that repels damage or a laser-equipped drone that will fly around and help you take out monsters. You can level up pretty quickly in Iron Core too, and if you are lucky with the cards, can build out a very powerful mech to keep ahead of the swarms.
There is also a lot happening on the battlefield that you have to keep an eye on. The shelter has a large ring around it which is considered a safe zone. There are still mutants inside the zone but much less than outside. That ring is constantly shrinking, unless you get to mines and get them operational once more. There are also a series of mini missions that pop up from time to time, and some of them can improve your shelter’s defenses or further expand the zone. You can even help out humans sometimes if you can find them. So, there is a strategic element mixed in with all of the running and shooting.
Iron Core also incorporates lots of other gameplay elements, which is pretty surprising in a indie title that is under $10 on Steam. One of the most critical is that it’s a rogue-like, which means that objectives completed during one run will carry through to the next. This can be especially critical if you are able to unlock new mechs, some of which are quite powerful right out of the gate. For example, the Mulan HX comes with a minigun and rocket artillery as its standard loadout, while the hunter has an energy crossbow and grenade launcher. That can give you a great starting point for a run, although every mech will evolve with the random cards as experience is gained from collecting resources after felling mutants. And you can buy, upgrade and place turrets too, which gives Iron Core a bit of a tower defense element.
Another element of Iron Core that was surprising to find, especially in an indie title, is that it has full voiceovers. Each of the AIs has their own personality, and they tend to talk or comment on the things that they encounter. Some of those kind of made me chuckle, like when the starting mech comments to the AI running the base that he has some advice for the next mech to take the field, only to be told that he is the last one, so should probably not die. There is often a lot of action going on out in the field so you may miss some of those conversations or comments, but it’s pretty incredible that they were included.
One of the coolest things about Iron Core: Mech Survivor is that you can play it for hours on end, or you can play for just a few minutes if you need a break from work or whatever. Even if you only have a little bit of time to play, you can still earn some great rewards for your next run. But there is more than enough content to also keep you engaged for hours on end too, and the nice little extras like the AI banter and various missions will keep you entertained.
Iron Core: Mech Survivor might not carry the depth of the biggest mech titles on the market, but what it delivers is an exciting and approachable experience that’s easy to pick up and hard to put down. Its roguelike structure, upgrade system and surprising extras like full voice acting make it stand out in the crowded bullet heaven genre. For less than ten dollars, it’s an indie title that mech fans, or anyone looking for a fun, fast-paced shooter with plenty of replay value, should definitely check out.