It’s uncharacteristically warm in San Francisco today, so I think I – more so than just about anyone in the world – am best equipped to identify with giant robots. Specifically, MechWarrior Online‘s menagerie of metallic monoliths who’ve taken to duking it out on the newly revealed Caustic Valley map. It is, in case you hadn’t guessed, very, very warm. Mechs, meanwhile, tend to naturally become hot enough to spontaneously combust an egg on top of by way of, well, existing, so Caustic Valley requires extremely careful piloting. Otherwise, you’ll get all sweaty and nasty and gross and dead.



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This sounds wonderful, I think. Every time I hear something new about MechWarrior, it seems more and more primed to fill the mech-sim-shaped hole in my heart, and maps with unique, battle-affecting properties only seal the deal. Heat management, cooler weapons versus their less heat-efficient counterparts, and even the general uselessness of thermal vision in a place built atop a volcano have all been taken into account, so you won’t just be going through the same old mechanized motions with an extra layer of molten window dressing.

Here’s hoping more maps give unique geographical properties a chance to shine. As is, we’ve at least got a snow level on the way as well, though there’s still no word on what sort of effects it’ll have on hulking hunks of death metal. Maybe it’ll give them a chance to model fashionable winter wear – the finest in stories-tall parkas and Snuggies. This is the gaming industry, though, so I imagine we’ll have to purchase them with… mechrotransactions. Welp, I’m done now. Like, with life, I think.