When Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon was announced at the Game Awards recently, From Software fans didn’t get a clear idea about the kind of gameplay route it will take.
For them, the big question was whether or not it will feature the same kind of gameplay seen in the studio’s modern games like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and more recently, Elden Ring.
The game’s makers have confirmed now that this won’t be the case. Armored Core 6 will leave behind the high-difficulty, environmental storytelling-focused gameplay of its recent games to go back to the roots of the mecha shooter franchise.
Hidetaka Miyazaki, who was the game’s earlier director, and Masaru Yamamura, the current director, were speaking to IGN when they made this revelation. “We’ve not been making a conscious effort to try to direct it towards more Soulsborne-type gameplay,” said Miyazaki.
The approach with this game, he said, is to focus on the “core concept” of the Armored Core series while using the experience of developing games from other series. Armored Core: Verdict Day was the last game from the franchise and had come out in 2013.
The directors have said that Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon will lay much of its emphasis on mecha assembly, customisation and piloting. It has also been revealed that the game will have a mission-based structure rather than it being open world.
In the IGN interview, Yamamura called its boss battles the “highlight” of Armored Core 6. He also said that the studio is planning a multiplayer versus mode, however, the team’s current focus is only on the single-player campaign.
Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon is scheduled to release sometime in 2023 for the PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC.