Over the last decade or so, Japanese developer FromSoftware has completely restructured what we expect from combat-focussed RPGs thanks to its Dark Souls games.
Its longer-running series, though, is actually Armored Core, a mech combat game that it’s been making for years, albeit with no title appearing since the PS3 and Xbox 360. Now, it’s back – find out everything you should know about Armored Core VI, below.
To find out about more upcoming games that we’re excited for, check out our lists for PlayStation 5 and for Xbox Series X/S.
Armored Core 6: Trailer
FromSoftware debuted Armored Core 6 at The Game Awards in 2022, with a classy trailer that you can see below.
It’s pretty atmospheric and doesn’t contain any gameplay, but certainly sets the mood and establishes what the game is about for those who don’t know – big robots.
Armored Core 6: Release date
The debut trailer for Fires of Rubicon does end with one tangible bit of information, and it’s a really big one – the game will be coming out in 2023.
There’s nothing more precise than that to go on, and we would assume that it’s aiming at the tail-end of the year, but this is still really encouraging.
Given we’re expecting some major Elden Ring DLC to arrive probably in mid-2023, it would make sense to have Armored Core lined up to close out the year for FromSoftware.
Armored Core 6: Platforms
Fires of Rubicon has been in development for a long time, according to industry rumours, and this is actually slightly backed up by its announced platforms.
The game will release not just for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, but also on PS4 and Xbox One, like Elden Ring before it. Whether this will make for any compromise in scope is impossible to gauge at this stage.
There will also be a PC release, of course (you can now wishlist it on Steam), but nothing on Switch.
Armored Core 6: Story
Depending on who you talk to, storytelling might not have always been central to the Armored Core series, which has often been fairly perfunctory and mission-based.
That might change with Fires of Rubicon. From the initial press release, we know that the game will centre on the planet Rubicon 3, where a valuable new substance has flared up a proxy war between corporations and harvesters.
We’ll apparently infiltrate the planet as a mercenary and find ourselves stuck in the middle of the conflict, trying to make our way.
Whether we’ll have control over story outcomes, or if there might be key decisions that we can make, is all up in the air at this stage.
Armored Core 6: Gameplay
Armored Core has been around for so long that its gameplay consequently evolved pretty significantly through console generations and over a dozen games.
This might be called Armored Core 6, but that’s a pretty big simplification of the games’ release timeline. Still, you can bank on a few things.
This will be a mech combat game in which you get to customise every component of your robot to your exact specifications.
You might want quicker movement speed, so pick a certain type of leg option, but sacrifice how much you can fly and boost as a result.
You could opt for extreme firepower with shoulder cannons, but accept that it’ll slow you down – there are loads of these sorts of decisions to be made, a little like customising a weapon in Modern Warfare 2.
Combat can be really fast-paced, which plays into a question over the style of Armored Core 6, and whether it’ll bring in some of the Soulslike mechanics that have made FromSoftware a star.
That would probably mean a pretty big evolution in the game’s combat, but we’ll have to wait for gameplay footage to see how it pans out.
The supreme success of Elden Ring also means we’ll be interested to see if the game sticks to a mission structure or whether it’ll have an open world to navigate.
So, at this stage there are plenty of question marks about what Fires of Rubicon will be like to play – all we can do is wait for more information!