it’s going to be a hot mecha summer

April 28, 2023 6:53 AM

“Elden Ring developer FromSoftware’s revival of the Armored Core franchise launches this summer. The latest trailer for Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon confirms an Aug. 25 launch date for the game, while also showing off first gameplay and cryptically teasing its story. [...] Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon was officially unveiled in December. The developer promises that the new Armored Core won’t just be a Soulsborne game with mecha. FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki said last year that his company is taking “a good look at the core concept of Armored Core and what made that series special,” applying its recent game development experience and “reexamining it together with those core concepts of Armored Core.” [via: Polygon]

An official description of that story makes everything much clearer. Here’s the setup for Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, from publisher Bandai Namco:

“A mysterious new substance called “Coral” was discovered on the remote planet, Rubicon 3. As an energy source, this substance was expected to dramatically advance humanity’s technological and communications capabilities. Instead, it caused a catastrophe that engulfed the planet and the surrounding stars in flames and storms, forming a Burning Star System. Almost half a century later, Coral has resurfaced on Rubicon 3, a planet now contaminated and sealed off by the catastrophe. Extra-terrestrial corporations and resistance groups fight over control of the substance. The player infiltrates Rubicon as an independent mercenary and finds themselves in a struggle over the substance with the corporations and other factions.”

posted by Fizz (25 comments total)

Robot wars! I can get into that.
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:57 AM on April 28, 2023

It feels like it's just dripping with testosterone.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:00 AM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

I made a high-pitched “squee!!!!!”-noise when I watched this gameplay trailer. PLUG. ALL. THAT. SHIT. INTO. MY. BRAIN.
posted by Fizz at 7:00 AM on April 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

Looks dope.
posted by Captaintripps at 7:10 AM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Watched the trailer twice. I'm seeing so many echoes of From's fantasy titles. Skeleton wheels! Pretty funny. But what I am not seeing is destructible parts, like Horizon's robots. That was a key and fascinating part of the gameplay there, disabling enemy attacks by gradually dismantling them. Loved it. Perhaps this will be more of a swarm the player kind of thing? But the bar has been raised for the quality of robot animation. I am not seeing it here. Even the shaders look very last generation.

Well, maybe it's a different kind of game. I've never played armored core but I'm not seeing anything to attract me at the moment. Am I missing something? Is it a bullet hell kind of thing, where a reduction in rendering quality might be acceptable in exchange?
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:16 AM on April 28, 2023

Armored Core: the Go-Bots of mechs.
posted by logicpunk at 7:17 AM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

The developer promises that the new Armored Core won’t just be a Soulsborne game with mecha.

The word “just” is doing a lot of unnecessary work in that sentence. How jaded we’d have to be to hear “Armored Core will be a Soulsborne game with mechs” and think ok, sure, but is that all it is?
posted by mhoye at 7:21 AM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

“… it’s also a mech dating sim, a mech-focused tile matching game, a game in a whole new genre we’re calling MJRPG, and also Mechtris.”
posted by mhoye at 7:26 AM on April 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

No poison swamps.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 7:43 AM on April 28, 2023 [2 favorites]

Between the new Armored Core is coming out and the excellent Gundam Witch from Mercury series getting huge ratings, this is going to be a big year for mecha.
posted by thecjm at 8:17 AM on April 28, 2023

Can't wait for August? FromSoftware's bonkers Metal Wolf Chaos XD is currently on sale on Steam
posted by thecjm at 8:20 AM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Why does robot have legs if it's just going to fly an inch above the ground all the time?
posted by ursus_comiter at 8:35 AM on April 28, 2023 [3 favorites]

The new trailer is great and the game is gonna be amazing.

But the original debut trailer from last year gave me chills. The apocalyptic vibe, palette, and synths...? I was sold day one. Cannot wait.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:53 AM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

FromSoftware's bonkers Metal Wolf Chaos XD is currently on sale on Steam

Having watched the game trailer and read its Wikipedia page, it's wild to me that anyone would lament the fact this game was never released in the West. It was made in the middle of the Bush era. I'm sure the sort of person who bought 9/11 Never Forget memorabilia might've purchased it but the rest of us couldn't have cringed harder.

This Armored Core game looks like Metal Wolf Chaos minus the insane American patriotism theme, and instead some sort of generic space mercenary theme, which is probably a good move because nobody much cares so long as the plot shuts the hell up and lets you blow stuff up.
posted by axiom at 12:04 PM on April 28, 2023

Who doesn't love improbably cool battling robots? Still makes me miss the first time I played Mechwarrior 2 and the chills you got from the intro video (doesn't that scream 90's now?) Give me a Timberwolf with jump jets and a 4 pack of LRM20s and I've got you.

Never played one of the "soul" style games. I'd be curious if this is the one I need.
posted by drewbage1847 at 2:13 PM on April 28, 2023 [1 favorite]

Still makes me miss the first time I played Mechwarrior 2

The box is on the bookshelf behind me, and my computer's startup is, "Reactor Online. Sensors Online. Weapons Online. All Systems Nominal."
posted by mikelieman at 3:17 PM on April 28, 2023 [5 favorites]

Mecha games have a rich tradition and they are generally somewhat slow and… mechanics driven, not much at all like Dark Souls. So yeah; a mecha skin on a From soft soulslike would be very disappointing to me, as a casual but longer term fan of the genre and series (my first AC was the second, released in 2000).

This looks really cool! I wasn't planning on owning the hardware required to run it for some years but it's one I'll keep my eye on nonetheless.
posted by SaltySalticid at 3:35 PM on April 28, 2023

Oh wait, I didn't realize it will play on PS4 and XB One, that's even better! And may explain why it's not pushing into bleeding edge rendering? Fine by me!
posted by SaltySalticid at 3:42 PM on April 28, 2023

> No poison swamps.

It's not poison! It's uhhhh Koji...ovsky particulate miasma! Suuuuper toxicbad for electronicals!
posted by genpfault at 4:28 PM on April 28, 2023

I'm super excited. I expect some of the successful design decisions from the Souls series to show up, but Fromsoft made 12 Armored Core games (plus Metal Wolf Chaos) before Demon's Souls, so I'm confident that they know what they're about.
posted by jy4m at 12:02 AM on April 29, 2023 [3 favorites]

I feel obliged to point out that Demon's Souls is a direct descendant of the King's Field series, of which the first was released for the PS1 in 1994 (29 years ago), and of which two more were released before the Armored Core series began in 1997. They've been cross-polinating ideas from these series for decades.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:50 AM on April 29, 2023

Super hyped for this. Been playing AC1 on Steam Deck and it holds up really well. Gotta get a move on if I'm going to sample the entire series before August though.
posted by rodlymight at 6:42 AM on April 29, 2023

I'm pretty confident this will be a good game, knowing and enjoying From's output. But that trailer looked a little too twitch/jumpy/actionactionaction for my tastes. I hope the gameplay isn't quite so relentless.

But the mech designs are really creative.
posted by SoberHighland at 7:21 PM on April 29, 2023

> Still makes me miss the first time I played Mechwarrior 2

Mechwarrior 2 was one of the first games I ever played on my 3DFx card when I first bought it. Good memories there for sure.

If anyone's interested, Mechwarrior Online is actually pretty good 12 v 12 Mech combat that is mainly faithful to the series and free to play. And it's not really pay-to-win either. I've been playing it for several years and barely spent any money on it at all. You can get most of what you need with in-game currency just earned from battles.
posted by barc0001 at 1:58 AM on April 30, 2023

Based on the speed of gameplay in previous AC games I'm guessing that this will feel a lot closer to Bloodborne than Souls. I've only played the games from the PS2 era but the combat in those is WAY more focused on movement than in any of the Souls games.
posted by Television Name at 12:11 PM on April 30, 2023