With games like Elden Ring and Dark Souls, FromSoftware appeared on a lot of gamers’ radars. A FromSoftware game means quality and difficulty nowadays, something they earned by delivering one hit after the other in the nearly impossible Souls genre. Armored Core, one of the company’s older franchises does things a bit differently. It offered the freedom to create your own mech and adapt to your situation, needless to say, this mech franchise gained tons of fans over the years. Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is the latest entry in the long-running franchise and it’s so much more than ‘Dark Souls with mechs’. This is a FromSoftware game pur sang that will blow you away with its options and depth.
The plot
In this Armored Core, you’ll play as an infiltrated mercenary on the planet of Rubicon. There’s a war raging on the planet with different corporations all trying to get their greedy hands on the planet’s mysterious but powerful raw material. It all seems pretty simple but there’s a bit more than meets the eye at first. If you played Dark Souls and Elden Ring you know that FromSoftware is a huge fan of mysteries and strange twists, those are certainly also present in this new Armored Core. It’s never as vague or strange as in the Souls games but there’s certainly a deeper layer to the story, making it way more interesting to play. Since you’re a solo mercenary, you accept missions from different corporations, as long as they pay, it’s all good. At the start of the game, you’re just blasting from one mission to the other without ever thinking about the consequences or about what you are actually doing. It’s during certain missions that you get the feeling that not everything is as simple as you thought. The briefings are masterfully leaving out important details of the missions which results in you doing something you never anticipated for the moment you signed on for the mission.
It’s amazing to see that the plot and story have this high level of mystery and twists, really giving more depth to the characters, even when you never see them outside of their mech. Although you never see another living being outside of those gigantic war machines, FromSoftware managed to deliver a deep and even emotional story underneath the layer of fast-paced action and explosives. Don’t expect epic storytelling but expect to be moved by the plot and its secrets, there’s really more to explore than you would think at first.
Tackle the missions
The missions in Armored Core 6 offer a lot of variation. Some can be completed in just a couple of minutes while other missions will keep you on the edge of your seat all evening. Before you ‘Sortie’ unto the battlefield, you have some basic information and a short briefing so you know what you might run into. From taking out defensive mech to taking out other pilots, it’s all there and it’s all fun and addictive to play. What I like most about the missions is how fast-paced the action is. When you think of mechs, you might think of slow and sturdy machines that are hard to control, but that’s not the case in the game. The mech is extremely fast (depending on the build of course) and the action is fast-paced and flashy. I loved playing with a faster mech that was able to soar high into the sky to deliver damage from the ground and from high in the sky. You’ll need to get used to your mech at first but the game does an amazing job of explaining the main mechanics. The shoulder buttons are crucial since they operate the weapons, combine this with speed boosts and dodges and you have a basic idea of how you need to control the game. The interface needs some getting used to at first but after a couple of hours, you’re controlling the mech as if it was an extension of yourself.
I really appreciate the level of unforced depth in the tutorial, it really feels natural and the game is giving you more and more options the more missions you complete at first. This results in a comfortable learning curve without ever feeling overwhelmed by the options. It’s a bit rare to see a tutorial done right nowadays but Armored Core finds the perfect balance between holding your hand and introducing new gameplay mechanics. Thanks to this, you’ll soar and fight your way through the first couple of missions. Until you encounter your first boss.
Prepare for a challenge
Where the missions offer variation and fun fast-paced action, there are times in Armored Core when you’ll get stuck trying to defeat a boss. It’s here where the Dark Souls and Elden Ring similarities pop up. While it’s definitely not Dark Souls with mechs, the bosses in Armored Core do follow that typical FromSoftware style of moving around and making your life as hard as possible. The biggest difference is the fact that you can prepare yourself for the challenge. Building your mech and switching out parts in between missions is one of the game’s most crucial features. At first, I didn’t really alter my mech that much but that changed once I got stuck trying to defeat one of the game’s first real bosses. Changing your gear and weapons comes with consequences. A heavily armored mech is slower and won’t be able to stay up in the air for long, while the faster, more agile mech will have to do with less powerful weapons. Finding the right type of mech to defeat a certain type of boss is part of the fun and is something that kept me motivated to try again and again. It’s something I’m not always willing to do in games like Dark Souls but here it was different. Changing and finding the right tools for the job is what makes it so much more rewarding. Just by switching out my main weapon to another one, I was able to take down the boss in my first fresh run, which resulted in an amazing feeling of course!
When you’re really confident in your build, you can take it for a run in the online modes where you can fight other people’s mechs. It’s not only a good way of testing your own mech, it’s also an opportunity to see what worked for others and maybe alter your own mech to increase your power. Multiplayer is a nice addition that really adds a lot of extra gameplay to the base game, this really is the total package.
Conclusion:
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is extremely fun and has tons of options for hours of fast-paced gameplay. It’s not the easiest game out there but it’s certainly not Dark Souls. This is its own type of game and thanks to the deep customization of your mech, you can always prepare and adapt your build to conquer the challenges. It’s probably the best in its genre and shouldn’t be overlooked.
