The newest trailer for Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, the long-awaited new entry to FromSoftware's sci-fi mecha video game franchise, revealed both a concrete release date (August 25, 2023) and concrete footage of the gameplay. The core gameplay for Armored Core 6 refines what was codified in previous Armored Core titles - a hard-to-kill "Raven" mercenary customizes their giant "AC" mech with different weapons and parts, then wage war on brutal battlefields. However, the spectacular boss fights and level designs shown in the trailers seems to draw inspiration from Dark Souls, Sekiro, and other more recent FromSoftware titles.
The stories of FromSoftware's Armored Core games are rarely happy ones, revolving around morally neutral mech-piloting mercenaries who fight each other to the death in grungy industrial complexes and polluted wastelands on behalf of mega-corporations or authoritarian states. Dialogue in Armored Core 6 suggests a similarly dark set of affairs, referring to the protagonist with the dehumanizing titles of "Dog" or "augmented human C4-621." While the protagonist of Armored Core 6 might be straining against chains of bondage or debt, long-time Armored Core fans may have more gameplay options than ever thanks to the design influences of other FromSoftware game franchises.
Boss Fights & Enemies In Armored Core 6 Take Cues From Dark Souls & Elden Ring
Previous Armored Core games made by FromSoftware typically pitted players against real-world military assets like battleships and tanks or other rival pilots of "Armored Core" combat mechs (such as the AI-controlled killing machine called Nineball). The enemies in the latest trailer for Armored Core 6, however, are much more exotic and seems to draw cues from the bizarre enemies players can encounter in Dark Souls and Elden Ring. There are "mob" type enemy mechs with front-facing shields a player must maneuver to by or the ability to transform into rolling wheels of destruction. Other gameplay footage shows massive Armored Core 6 bosses like sand-worms from Dune and behemoths with appendages tipped with red-hot steamrollers.
Armored Core 6 Mission Maps Learn From FromSoftware Games, Too
FromSoftware has gone on record as saying that Armored Core 6 won't be an open world RPG like Elden Ring was. Similar to previous Armored Core titles, players of Armored Core 6 will select and accept specific missions, then deploy into large yet finite maps full of hostiles and objectives to complete. Going by the recent trailer, though, the mission maps in Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon will be more complex and multilayered than in prequels - particularly multi-leveled industrial complexes and refineries. Additionally, the trailer shows footage of a mech activating a sub-system in order to see the positions of enemy units on the other side of a wall, implying the existence of stealth/ambush mechanics similar to those in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice and showing enemies inspired by FromSoft games other than Dark Souls.
