If you think From Software’s next game in its long-revered Armored Core franchise is going to accommodate new players who want it free and breezy, think again.

According to the game’s lead producer Yasunori Ogura and producer Atsuo Yoshimura, Armored Core 6: Fires Of Rubicon is still going to make its player base work for its wins: instilling the satisfaction of overcoming challenging situations and earning hard-won victories. Players are given a great deal of freedom in choosing their approach to each situation using their Armored Core of choice, be it against a mid-boss or a giant-as-heck centipede-like mecha.

At the very least, you can still customize your AC like in past games, and the controls still are as “impactful” as they should be for any game that lets you pilot a heavy death-dealing giant machine.

Build-A-Mech

Which is why Assembly mode in the game is important: it allows you to create your own death-dealing machine and make it as jacked-up as possible. You have to factor in health, defense, Attitude Stability (more on that later), Boost Speed, and Current Load; you cannot load up your Core with too many weapons and also consider whether it has faster boost speed for maneuvering on the battlefield. The leg parts of the Core vary greatly depending on the type and changes the action in the game dramatically; for example, reverse-jointed legs let you move faster than usual. Each hand and shoulder can equip up to four weapons, depending on the limit of the Current Load.

After tinkering around with Assembly, we then check out the presentation’s first mission: liberating a place called Grid 086 which features outside and indoors combat against arms dealers called RaD. The stage has lots of corridors and deathtraps, but luckily your Core has the ability to scan areas ahead to see what enemies are lurking. Since they’re unaware you’re plodding around in the corner, our AC just boosted forth and surprise attack and quickly dispatched the enemies in one fell swoop.

At the tail end of the mission, we also fought a 4-legged Armored Core and giant heavy robot called the Smart Cleaner. The former shrugs off machine gun fire and can only be effectively damaged with melee attacks. The latter is a beast to fight; you need to dodge, fly, and get close to hurt it while avoiding its heavily-telegraphed big swing attacks with its “cleaning” grinders. In boss situations like these, the Impact and Stagger element mechanics are useful, especially since you’ll most likely die in one or two hits from the giant.

The Impact element of an attack can compromise the mech’s Attitude Stability system (its stability in the AC universe), causing the Core to stall temporarily. Any attack received while an enemy is in Stagger is treated as a direct hit, resulting in heavy damage. You generally want to equip weapons that deal decent Impact status, which will then leave them in a Stagger state, enabling you to deal more direct damage. This is similar to filling up the Posture bar in Sekiro, or even depleting an enemy’s defense in a modern Final Fantasy game, resulting in them being Staggered.

We’ve also noticed how aggressive our AC is when dealing with the game’s many, many enemies and “dungeon crawling” levels. It’s now “easier” to close in the gap between enemies as AC6 requires you to be more aggressive than in past games. Yes, you still can die if you’re overconfident as enemies still deal massive damage to you, but your boosting and vertical-movement capabilities are a lot more flexible and varied now.

Remember how cool it is to deal death from above onto enemies below as a giant walking tank in titles like MechWarrior? Armored Core 6 will let you do this 80% of the time, especially with the fact that the Impact and Stagger mechanics complement well with future hit-and-run tactics you can pull off with your AC.

Core Values

If you wonder why the game feels like old-school Armored Core but with beefed-up 2023 graphics, that’s because Armored Core 6 is a soft reboot for the franchise. With that mindset, From Software hopes to bring back the series from obscurity since 2012, introducing a new generation of mecha fans to the joys of customizing your personal Armored Core to the fullest, getting their asses kicked in the first bout, then customizing it again and getting better at the game.

At the same time, Armored Core 6 will promise better and tighter mecha controls, expansive and dynamic maps that give a huge sense of progression, and challenging action battle designs. The developer’s past fantasy titles -Dark Souls trilogy, Elden Ring- already established the latter design mandate for the past decade, so bringing it up yet again in a dystopian sci-fi giant robot-filled setting is only natural.

Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon will be out for PC, Xbox Series, and PlayStation 5 this 25th August.