Elden Ring and Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice developer FromSoftware is making a new Armored Core game, one that promises to be challenging and deliver visceral mech-based combat. But the creators behind Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon say their revival of the franchise isn’t simply a “Soulsborne” game in heavy metal clothing.
FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki told IGN in an interview that his company is not trying to direct Armored Core 6’s mechanics toward Soulsborne-type gameplay — the type of gameplay established in 2009 by Demon’s Souls, and refined over more than a decade through Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and, most recently, Elden Ring. Instead, Miyazaki said, FromSoftware is taking “ a good look at the core concept of Armored Core and what made that series special” and applying its recent game development experience and “reexamining it together with those core concepts of Armored Core.”
In other words, Miyazaki told IGN, the Armored Core games’ mech assembly and the freedom of “adjusting each individual part” of your mech — which will determine just how well your AC performs in battles — will still be present in Armored Core 6.
Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice director Masaru Yamamura is helming the new Armored Core, and he tells IGN that the samurai action game and Armored Core 6 “share the same essence of battle such as aggressive, speed change and action-oriented fighting.” Players will break enemy mechs posture, he said, letting them strike with critical hits.
“This is the starting point for the slow and fast speed change of the battle, and when combined with long-range firefighting and close-range melee combat, the enemy and his machine engage each other violently, creating a more aggressive and dynamic battle that only mechas can engage in,” Yamamura explained.
Armored Core 6’s will focus on single-player for its story mode, Yamamura said, but there will be some sort of multiplayer element. “Dynamic and intense boss battles” will be the highlight of the game, Yamamura said.
FromSoftware and publisher Bandai Namco officially confirmed their reboot of the Armored Core franchise last week at The Game Awards 2022. But Armored Core 6’s existence had leaked months earlier, with images and a game description that promised a “third-person shooter mecha action title that lets you move around an overwhelmingly scaled map that represents a unique sci-fi world with dynamic mech action” and “fierce battles both long and short range using guns and blades.”
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon will be released in 2023 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
