Video games that feature mechs — pilotable robots meant for battle — have always been rare. Most of them, from 2023’s Armored Core 6 to 2016’s Titanfall 2 to the Mechwarrior games of old, are fast-paced combat simulators. Bounty Star, a new mech game that’s out now on PC and consoles, slows down the action with a story about starting life anew on the frontier. 

Bounty Star, developed by studio Dinogod, still has its share of real-time combat encounters that make up the bulk of the gameplay. But filling the time between all that action are calmer moments, maintaining a desert ranch, from gardening and tending livestock to tuning up a mech. It’s in these more mundane stretches that the game’s setting sings, with the twanging guitar soundtrack echoing around a dusty barn plopped in the middle of anywhere and nowhere under a seemingly endless sky. 

It’s the perfect place for Clementine, a rugged former sheriff looking to escape mistakes in her past. Covered in tattoos and burn scars, she’s an ace pilot of the mechs (called Raptors) that protect the settlements of a world patching itself back together after a couple of apocalypses. Clem is a salty survivor getting back on her feet, fixing up the dilapidated waystation she’s been given by her bounty handler as she cleans up the desert of bandits and dinosaurs gnawing at the edges of civilized life in the frontier.

Cowboys and mechs, what could be better? There’s a lot of heart in Bounty Star, earning its place in boutique publisher Annapurna Games’ release calendar. The cartoony style softens the game’s somber themes of people eking out an existence on the edge of society, but its combat is well-tuned. Clem ventures out on bounty missions in her trusty Raptor, which can be tweaked to fit the mission. Most of the time, you’ll be gunning down or capturing bandits on foot or in mechs of their own. 

Over time, you’ll acquire an arsenal of guns, explosive launchers, swords and hammers to clean out the sands and canyons around your ranch. You’ll have to be careful what you pack into your kit, as weapons can raise or lower the heat of your mech. Swing too widely one way or another, and you’ll force a shutdown, leaving you vulnerable. However, you can switch modular systems in and out, like a chilling coil that keeps your mech at a cooler baseline, which is great for heading out in the hot afternoon but not the cooler evening. Juggling kit pieces and time of day for a mission is part of the balancing act that keeps you switching things up.

I’m about 10 hours into the game and have unlocked some of the elements of the farm: a set of plant beds, a couple of electrolyzing tanks for mech fuel and a hive for a bug friend I can bring on missions. All need tending in the mornings, after which I can cook up a meal for bonus stats for the day’s combat. Then I take on bounties, some of which can only be attempted at certain times — like one in the evening that had me clear out a floodlit baseball field. 

While the days are spent knocking bandit heads amid the desert rock and sand, the night landscapes are lit up by phosphorescent purple trees — potentially the effect of the devastating wars of years gone by, but a lovely environmental effect regardless. Rising above the neon violet flora are the stars, and like anywhere not spoiled by the light pollution of a city, the specks of white blanket the night. 

I’m not far into the game, and haven’t hit too many story beats. But whenever I complete enough bounties to cross a milestone, I’m treated to a scene of Clem sitting atop her Raptor, filling out a journal, talking about the slow progress of gaining trust from the oddballs she’s met and the Syndicate that assigns her bounties meant to bring law to the land.

Few though they are, most other mech games are action-packed bonanzas against the backdrop of global (Armored Core 6) or galactic politics (Battletech). Bounty Star shrinks the scale down to a jaded woman and the land she’s helping bring back to order and productivity, one way or another. Helping others helps bring her peace. As anyone who knows the desert can tell you, look past the barren emptiness long enough and you’ll find wonder in natural beauty and purpose in making a living in the harsh frontier.

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Bounty Star is out now on PC (via Steam

and Epic), Xbox Series X and S, and PlayStation 5, for $22.49.