After an array of widely-played betas, Mecha Break has finally launched across PC and Xbox to some impressive player counts, but it's not all rosy out there. The shooter's Steam user reviews are settling in at "mixed" owing to some pretty aggressive monetization, which includes $47 cosmetic packs and an auction house that's skirting the pay-to-win line.
Mecha Break launched to a concurrent player peak of 132,816 on Steam, as SteamDB shows. The true number is likely actually a bit higher, as that figure doesn't include players on Xbox or using the game's standalone PC launcher. It's worth noting, however, that the playtest earlier this year reached much, much higher numbers.
Players are responding very positively to Mecha Break's action, but - as we've come to expect from a free-to-play title - the monetization is drawing plenty of negative Steam reviews. One of the chief complaints is that many of the cosmetics that were available in the beta have now been locked behind currency, which means you've either got to grind or shell out for them here.
Many of those cosmetics are small-price microtransaction, but there are, er, macrotransactions too. The Leonie Fevrie pack, which includes unique pilot and mech cosmetics, is priced at a whopping $47, and the 28-day countdown timer tied to it means there's a little extra FOMO pressure thrown on top.
You can in theory purchase this pack with currency earned in-game, but it seems you can only do so through the auction house, and only if another player has shelled out the cash to buy it and list it there. That means you can probably expect it to cost even more on the auction house.
But those are all cosmetics, and the kinds of purchases we've come to expect from free-to-play titles. The player auction house, which uses a currency you can pay real money for, lets you buy weapons and mods to take into Mecha Break's Mashmak mode, which is a PvPvE extraction option. You can get these items by playing, yes, but you can also straight-up buy them from other players. That's a level of gameplay-enhancing microtransaction that tends to attract phrases like "pay-to-win."
For its part, developer Amazing Seasun Games has been directly responding to many of the negative reviews, clarifying details about the monetization scheme and promising that the team is "actively reviewing feedback." Whether that feedback results in major changes to Mecha Break's in-game purchases remains to be seen.
Check out our Mecha Break tier list or all the latest Mecha Break codes if you're looking to dive in yourself.
