Battle Tech: The Crescent Hawk's Revenge - Gameplay

Gameplay

BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Revenge used a proto-real-time strategy engine that allowed players to pause the game every time orders were issued to a unit. Players could also speed up or slow down time, allowing them to play the game at any desired pace. The combat was modeled modestly well after classic BattleTech rules, much more so than the later Mech Commander, making The Crescent Hawk's Revenge one of the few BattleTech games to closely follow the rule set of the board game.

The main part of the game was a linear campaign of missions, where the player was presented with a tactical battle that could last anywhere from 5 minutes to 50 minutes. The first mission involves a simple battle between a Jenner mech and a Locust mech, serving as a tutorial and story kick-off. Later missions would give the player control of 4 mechs in their 'command lance' and 2 additional lances.

The mechs in the command lance were controlled individually, while mechs in the two other lances were controlled by issuing orders to the entire lance. This is another major strategy milestone, as The Crescent Hawk's Revenge had the concept of allowing the player to control both individual units and groups of units using the same control scheme.

The campaign is noted for its variety, where the player would be tasked with objectives ranging from defending a crashed dropship, to stalling enemy units for a set amount of time, to protecting a convoy that is attempting to load up with ammunition. Campaign missions sometimes had multiple endings and/or different story paths. Additionally, the outcome of a battle could often influence the next few missions, giving the game a sense of persistence that campaign modes in strategy titles often lack.

However, the campaign is also noted as being very difficult, with some early campaign choices making subsequent missions much harder without the player realizing it. While the game attempted to present the player with multiple ways to complete some missions, the methods often varied wildly in difficulty, and the player would not know this until after trying all options.